


My Ex Man Brought His New Girlfriend (She's Like "Oh My Spirits")

by quietprofanity



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Deconstruction of Fanfic Tropes, F/F, F/M, Mary Sue, ex-lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3258383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietprofanity/pseuds/quietprofanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Avatar is glad that Mako has found love, but did it have to be her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Is this a Mary Sue fanfic? Or a Mary Sue deconstruction? Perhaps it’s a deconstruction of a Mary Sue deconstruction? Who cares? Mary Sues are feminist now. So if you don’t like it maybe you should look into your heart and try to figure out why you hate women, you clown!
> 
> Okay, being serious for a moment – this fanfic does focus more on the canon characters and their relationships than the new person, so if you give it a shot I’d be much obliged and hope you find something you like.

~*~*~

A crowd had gathered outside the locker room doors. It was a small crowd – nothing that compared to the throngs that had beleaguered Mako and his brother during their pro-bending heyday, but he recognized the type. He used to resent them, but now … Well, it was harder to feel arrogant when he was pushing through them, trying to get to the doors.

“Hey, big guy,” he said to the guard in front of the doors, trying to sound casual. Said guard was pretty big – over seven feet tall – and he didn’t exactly have a friendly look. “Um, any chance I can get in there and say ‘Hi,’ to the team?”

When the guard glared and spat a huge loogie on the ground an inch from Mako’s feet, Mako just smiled, tried to turn on the charm. “I’m, uh, I’m Mako? Of the Fire Ferrets? I know that was four years ago, but …”

The guard spat on the ground again. Ugh, Mako thought. What was he doing here? This wasn’t like him. Part of Mako wanted to turn around but he kept remembering that conversation he’d had with Korra at Zhu-Li and Varrick’s wedding, how he’d wanted to Korra to see from his words that he still loved her, would be willing to try again.

So much for that. The time for being indirect, for not going after what he wanted, was over.

The guard snorted. “Who do you really want to see?”

“The Spider-Cats,” Mako answered.

The guard gave him a disbelieving glare, something that said ‘you might have been famous once, but answer the question.’

A flush colored Mako’s cheeks. “I want to talk to the airbender.”

“Yuki?” The guard laughed. “Good luck, buddy.”

The guard popped his head into the locker room to ensure no one was changing, then let Mako in. (He still held out his hands for a tip. Mako slipped him a thousand-yuan note.)

She was small – Mako figured as much from his view of the ring, but when he got closer he found the top of her head met his mid-chest. She had changed out of her purple-and-black pro-bending clothes, had wrapped an orange scarf through her wavy, bobbed hair – brown with red tints that probably came from a Varridye bottle. She wore a larger scarf over her pale yellow, short-sleeved, knee-length flared cheongsam.

“Um …” Mako coughed awkwardly. “Hi, I’m …”

Yuki turned around, her brown eyes wide. Then she let out an ear-piercing scream.

~*~*~

Avatar Korra lived in a mansion.

It had been a year – well, it had been six months since she’d returned from the Spirit World but a year since she and Asami had become a couple – and sometimes Korra still didn’t know how to feel about that. “No earthly possessions” didn’t exactly mesh with having a swimming pool, even if it was technically Asami’s swimming pool.

It was a nice swimming pool, though. Korra swum lazily up and down it, breaststroke one way and backstroke the other. Still, Republic City had something of a poor economy now, given Kuvira’s attack and the new portal. Both she and Asami were working harder than ever, Asami with rebuilding her company and charity work (so earning millions of yuans and giving them away – although Hiroshi had reverted her trust back to her before his death so she would always have a base level of security), Korra with diplomatic relations in the Earth Confederacy and the United Republic. So did that make it right to enjoy their luxuries? Korra wasn’t sure.

Naga had a lot of space to run on the estate, at least.

“Hey, sweetie! I’m home!”

Korra had been mid-backstroke when she heard Asami’s voice. She turned around in the water and swam to the edge, hoisted herself up by her hands to meet Asami in a kiss.

“It’s so good to see – Ahhh!”

Korra grabbed onto Asami’s torso and pulled her down into the water. Asami sputtered and flailed in the pool until Korra started tickling her. She dissolved into laugher, locked her arms and legs around Korra as they hugged in the water.

“Do you know how long this is going to take to dry?” Asami asked. “Do you care?”

Korra squeezed Asami tighter. “I love you.”

Asami sighed and kissed Korra on the forehead. “Get out of the pool. We have to go to dinner in an hour.”

Korra followed Asami, their wet feet leaving sloppy tracks on the surrounding tiles.

“Did I ever tell you that I love that suit on you?” Asami asked.

She had. Even though Korra had originally tried to eschew the dark-blue, low-cut around the butt one-piece for something she thought Asami would find prettier, Asami told her to go with what made her feel more comfortable. She ended up loving it.

“Anyway,” Asami said, “Bolin called me at work. Mako’s bringing someone to dinner.”

Korra’s eyes widened. She was at a loss for what to say until Asami threw her a towel. “Someone … like a girlfriend?”

Asami shrugged. “Seems like it.”

“I didn’t even know he was dating.”

“Nobody did. Apparently this is the first time Bolin’s getting to meet her, too. Wild, huh?”

Korra rubbed her hair with the towel, turning it into a short, tangled puff around her head. She felt strangely unsettled, a tightness in her stomach like something was wrong.

“Yeah …” she finally said. “Wild.”

~*~*~

Asami drove them to Kwang’s – her choice, but Bolin had the means to afford it now that he’d returned to acting. Korra was good at driving these days, but she didn’t feel up to it tonight.

As much as she didn’t like to think about it, she was still feeling sick. Perhaps for not keeping in touch until another “Avatar-size” disaster was ready to hit? Maybe. Yeah, that was probably it.

When they arrived at the front door to Kwang’s, when Asami paid the valet, Korra saw Mako. He was getting out of a cab, came dressed for the restaurant in a suit similar to the one he’d worn when she’d last saw him at Zhu-li and Varrick’s wedding. It might have been the same one.

Wow. Had it really been that long?

Mako saw her too, smiled as Korra ran to him. The weird, uncomfortable feeling Korra had was gone. They hugged each other, squeezing with all their strength.

“Hey, you,” he said.

Korra laughed as they let go. “It’s great to see you, Mako.”

“Great to see you, too.” Mako looked past her and nodded. “Hey, Asami!”

“Hi.” The two of them shook hands and blew kisses at each other’s cheeks. “How’ve you been, Mako?”

“Great. It’s … it’s kind of been a crazy year. Got back on the force. We had a huge triad bust a couple of months ago. But, yeah, things are turning around for me.”

“So we’ve heard,” Korra said, giving Mako a sly, side-eyed smile.

Mako chuckled. “So Bolin told you. Well, it’s still pretty new, but …”

Their conversation was interrupted by a high-pitched squeal. The women looked past Mako to see a tiny, pixie-like girl hurtling toward Mako. When she was a foot away she leaped onto him, clasping her arms and legs around him.

“Mako! Mako, Mako, Mako!” The girl kissed him on the cheeks, making loud ‘Mwah! Mwah!’ sounds. “Oh my Spirits, you are so cute and I haven’t seen you in, like, ten hours. I felt like I was going crazy.”

“Okay, Yuki. I know. I missed you, too.” Mako had a smile on his face as he peeled Yuki’s white-stockinged legs off his sides and set her on the ground. “Why don’t we say ‘hi’ to my friends now? This is –”

“Avatar Korra!” Yuki screamed her name in a pitch so high it could attract flying bison, then gave Korra another crushing hug. “Oh my Spirits, I have waited, like, so long to meet you. You are, like … like do you ever see a picture of someone and have that feeling that if you ever met them you would be the best of friends? That is, like … eeee! And you’re here! You’re here right in front of me! And …” Yuki looked over at Asami and gasped. “Oh my Spirits you are, like, so much prettier in person. Your hair is like a bird. Like one of those pretty back birds with the feathers that look all green and purple in the light. You are … eee, so gorgeous!”

Mako laughed. He put a hand on Yuki’s shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. “Wanna see if Bolin’s inside?”

Korra and Asami followed arm in arm after Mako and Yuki. As they went, Asami bent down to whisper in Korra’s ear.

“So … she thinks my hair’s green? Right? That’s what I got from that conversation …”

~*~*~

There were so many words for annoying. Korra thought of all of them as they waited for their food to arrive. Tiresome. Irritating. Frustrating. Obnoxious. Completely obnoxious.

Yuki shrieked every word, butted into every conversation. She laughed loudly – a shrill, chirping cackle – whenever Mako made a funny or “funny” joke, and sometimes pounded the table. Korra kept looking over at Asami for some kind of reaction, but whenever Korra looked, Asami seemed to be searching for the waiter. Bolin was trying to keep up a conversation, but …

“So … man,” Bolin said. “It’s crazy that you just went back to the locker rooms and …”

“Eee! I know!” Yuki said. “Like, before I became an airbender I used to listen to, like, every Fire Ferret match on the radio.”

Bolin forced his wince into a smile. “Oh … oh yeah?”

“Yeah! Oh my Spirits, you were, like, totally robbed of the championship. That was so unfair and then when Shinobi’s broadcast went out?” Yuki screamed. “I couldn’t sleep that night. I was, like, crying.”

“Aww,” Mako pet her on the back. “You’re so silly.”

Yuki burst out laughing. “Oh, I know. I am, like, so emotional. I think that’s why I’m an airbender now. Like, I just have all these special feelings and love for other people. Like Mako! It’s like, so hard for him to get in touch with his feelings but I have enough feelings for the both of us!”

“And for everyone else in the restaurant,” Korra muttered.

Asami elbowed her in the ribs.

“Ow!”

Bolin laughed like he was trying to force it through his throat. “Wow. You know, isn’t it weird that when we were young there was only one airbender and now we’re both dating airbenders?”

Yuki shrieked. “Oh my Spirits, you’re dating an airbender? Which one? I know so many airbenders!”

“Um …” Bolin looked at Mako as if for help, but Mako had his chin in his hand, stared moonily at Yuki. “You probably don’t know her. Opal Beifong.”

“Eeee! You are so wrong! Opal was my teacher two years ago. Eeee! This is so amazing, isn’t it? It’s like fate brought me here to be with all of you!”

That was the moment Korra thought she saw Bolin’s soul die.

The food arrived and Yuki was blissfully quiet while eating. For two minutes. Then she started squealing over how good the food was, asked everyone to tell her what they were eating and how it tasted. Asami actually tried to head her off and gave her some, but that didn’t stop the shrieking and other unnecessary noise.

At least four patrons gave them dirty looks as they walked past the table to exit the restaurant.

Korra cleared her throat. Part of her wanted to put this off until she could bring everyone together without Yuki, but she knew plans needed to be made sooner rather than later.

“So, about what we need to do. There’s a gang of criminals who fled the Earth Confederacy into the United Republic’s borders and into the Spirit World, and while it’s been kept secret from the general public so far, the new Dai Li thinks they may be the ones who kidnapped the presidential candidates last month.”

Yuki gasped, hands on her cheeks. “Oh my Spirits, I heard about that!”

“Yeah, we all did,” Asami snapped. “It was all over the news.”

Mako frowned at her.

Korra cleared her throat. “Anyway, President Raiko said given how anxious the populace has been last year, he’s loath to let the Confederacy’s army into the Spirit Portal unless he has to, and the few United Forces missions have been unsuccessful. There’s talk that the kidnappers may have gone into the Fengkuang Mountains, so that may be why.”

“Fengkuang Mountains?” Bolin asked.

“The Mountains of Madness. They drive you crazy.”

“Ohhh.”

“Given the risk I think we should all do this together. The day after tomorrow is the weekend, so I figure that gives us a day to prepare without any trouble to your day jobs. You all in?”

“Yeah!” Bolin exclaimed, pumped his fist. “I’m always up for reforming Team Avatar!”

Mako smiled and nodded. “I made you a promise that I’d always follow you into battle. I’m happy to be of service.”

Yuki squealed, shook her two first near her chin in excitement. “Oh my Spirits, a Team Avatar teamup and I’m right here! Can I come?”

Everyone at the table looked at her in shock. Even Mako.

“Um …” Korra glanced at Asami. Her girlfriend looked positively horrified.

“I can fight!” Yuki said, her voice wavering, as if she were trying to convince herself as well as the other four. “I mean, I know I’m a year behind most airbenders because I wanted to finish school before I joined Master Tenzin but I’m really, really good now. Like, people kept saying that pro-bending would never work with airbenders but I really think it can and everyone in the unofficial league says I’m really, really good, and …”

“Hey, look, um …” Korra chewed on her lip, tried to choose her words carefully. “I’m sure you’re great. But, um, Opal is coming and she has more experience so she can be our airbender.”

“She is?” Bolin asked, surprised. Then realization hit him and he smiled. “Oh yeah … she is. Totally. Good old Opal. Being our airbender. She’s the best.”

Mako shot Bolin a glare before turning to Korra. “Look, Korra, you’re the boss here, but we’ve gone into battle with multiple airbenders, earthbenders and even firebenders before, if you count General Iroh and me. I don’t think two airbenders is going to be a big deal.”

“Well … um, I’m just saying if we had two it might be better to use Jinora because she has a lot of experience and talent when it comes to the Spirit World.”

“She’s fifteen!” Mako threw up his hands.

“Um,” Bolin held up a finger. “I joined Team Avatar at sixteen …”

“But Yuki’s twenty years old!”

“It’s okay,” Yuki whispered, putting a hand on Mako’s shoulder. “I just … I just got really excited. You don’t have to take me along.”

Korra breathed a sigh of relief.

The dinner broke up shortly after that. As Korra and Asami waited for their valet, Mako helped Yuki into a cab, sending her off with a kiss goodnight. She clung to him tightly before the door closed, then popped her head out the window and blew him kisses as the cab drove away.

Asami sighed. “It’d be nice if we could be that open,” she whispered to Korra.

“We could,” Korra whispered back.

“It’s not that simple.”

Mako then walked over to Korra and Asami. He placed a hand on Korra’s shoulder.

“Can we talk alone for a minute?”

Asami frowned at him. “Anything you can say to her you can say in front of me.”

“What?” Mako sputtered. “Where did that come from?”

“It’s fine,” Korra said. She walked a few paces away with Mako, folded her arms across her chest as she waited for him to speak.

“Listen,” Mako said. “I know Yuki is kind of intense …”

That was an understatement, Korra thought.

“But she is really good. She can pull her weight. And … it would mean a lot to me if I could share this part of my life with her, especially since Bolin and the two of you are dating someone who can. Tomorrow night Yuki is going to be playing in the official pro-bending arena. It’s basically a small tournament to showcase to the hardcore fans what airbenders could do in the sport. It’s ultimately your decision and I’ll come to the Spirit World regardless, but would you consider coming to see her fight? For me?”

Korra sighed. She really, really didn’t want to do this. She’d been excited about the four of them going to the Spirit World alone, had been picturing a fun adventure with Team Avatar.

On the other hand … Korra had been interested in the unofficial pro-bending leagues for some time. And she could use some fun before the big mission.

“Okay,” Korra said. “But I’m not promising anything.”

“You’re the best.”

Mako gave her a crushing hug. As she hugged him back, Korra took comfort in the knowledge that she wouldn’t have to actually talk to Yuki during the match.

~*~*~

Asami liked the game they were playing, Korra thought, she just didn’t know it yet.

She was sitting at her vanity table, taking off the day’s makeup while Korra lay on their bed pretending to read.

“Oh my Spirits, you are, like, still so beautiful,” Korra said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Like how can anyone be that beautiful? You’re like … a fish, or something.”

Asami tried to suppress a snort. “Who talks like that, anyway? I’ve never heard anyone say that. It’s almost like something people think other people say. Especially in bed.”

“Like, oh my Spirits, what do you mean?” Korra crawled to the edge of the bed, opened her eyes as wide as they could go. “I know people who say this all the time. And I mean – All. The. Time.”

“Uh-huh.” Asami turned on her cushioned stool to look at Korra. “And are you now going to be one of those people who say that All. The. Time?”

“Like, oh my Spirits, I could totally be one of those people. Why wouldn’t I be one of those people? Oh my Spirits, it’s totally not annoying, right?”

Asami actually did chuckle this time. “Oh my Spirits, it’s totally not.” She leaped onto the bed into Korra’s arms. They wrestled and laughed for a while, finally cuddling up next to each other.

“Ugh,” Korra said after a moment. “I don’t know what he’s thinking.”

Asami shrugged, her shoulders rubbing against Korra’s. “Maybe he’s happy.”

“But how?” Korra threw up her hands. “I mean, even Bolin couldn’t stand her and Bolin likes almost everybody who isn’t actively trying to kill him.”

“You know …” Asami turned on her stomach, propped herself up on her elbows as she looked into Korra’s eyes. “You don’t have to go tomorrow. Just tell him you only want it to be the four of us. He said he’d come anyway.”

“I know. I just …” Korra stared up at the ceiling, that intricately decorated, beautiful ceiling that Asami had stared up at for years, that was now hers too. “I just … feel like I should? It would make him happy.”

Asami stared at Korra for a moment. “Okay,” she said, “I trust you.”

She turned over to go to bed, leaving Korra to wonder what she meant.

~*~*~

People were protesting the match. Korra couldn’t believe it. She had to fight her way through a crowd of people holding up signs reading “No change for our game!” and “Airbending = Cheating!” to get into the pro-bending arena.

“Sheesh,” Korra muttered to herself. “Why are people so upset over something that’s just for fun?”

Despite that, Korra found Mako easily in the stands. He must have come from work because he was still wearing his officer's uniform. He’d gotten a seat at the front, smiled as she sat in the empty space next to him.

“I’m really glad you could make it,” Mako said.

“No problem.” Korra looked around him, saw no other extra seats. “Bolin’s not here?”

“Well, I didn’t ask him. He’s been tied up at work these days. Anyway, I think you’re going to have a lot of fun. I hope you like Yuki’s moves.”

Korra smiled pleasantly, was grateful when the house lights went down a second later and Shiro Shinobi’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers.

“Goooood evening, pro-bending lovers, and welcome to our first-of-a-kind, four-player pro-bending extravaganza.” As he spoke, eight teams – four on each side – poured from the retractable arena walkways into the ring. They lifted their arms up over their heads as the audience cheered.

“This special event will be a short tournament between the best that the unofficial league has to offer,” Shinobi said. “The Lotus Way Lizard-Crows. The Omashu Town Ostrich-Horses. The Little Water Tribe Walrus-Yaks. The South Side Shirshus. The Purple Cliffs Pythonacondas. The Cabbage Corp Canyon Crawlers. The Green Valley Goat-Gorillas. And the Sakuratown Spider-Cats.”

Korra focused on the last team, who were waving in their purple uniforms. They looked like the Red Sands Rabaroos had brought their little sister to the match. All of Yuki’s female teammates were buff and towered over her, had on stern smiles as opposed to her frantic jumping up and down.

After a few more bows, all but two teams – The Spider-Cats and the Lizard-Crows – remained in the ring.

“For those in our audience who’ve never seen the pulse-pounding excitement of four-player pro-bending before, the rules for airbenders are as follows. Like water- and firebenders, airbenders are only allowed a one, count ‘em, one-second blast, folks. A one-second blast can be used to block but grabbing and re-directing a projectile with airbending is strictly prohibited. And, finally, absolutely no flying, no using airbending for jumps higher than two feet, or using it to prevent the airbender falling off the back unless he or she has at least one foot still on the ring floor. Got that, folks? Well, you better, because this four-player pro-bending tournament is about to begin.”

Korra clapped politely as the crowd cheered. No matter what happened tonight, this would be interesting.

The bell rang and the match began. Mako was right – Yuki was a good player. Possibly a great one. She was as fast as a jackalope, spent most of her time bobbing and weaving across the ring, spinning as she dodged. She stayed low to the ground, using her smallness to her advantage and allowing the projectiles to zoom over her head. When Yuki struck, she hit with a barrage of quick (but still under the time limit) air blasts, one after the other. The Spider-Cats won by a second-round knockout, with Yuki being the one to knock two of the other team’s players into the water.

Korra and Mako stood up together to cheer at the victory bell. The rest of the audience soon followed.

“Impressed?” Mako asked Korra.

“Very. She’s amazing!”

Mako beamed with pride. Korra waited for him to say something.

“What is it?” she asked when he didn’t.

“Nothing. Just … the way she plays reminds me a lot of you, that first time.”

Korra felt her heart pounding. “Thanks. Actually … a lot of this reminds me of the old days. I feel like I want to get out there and play.”

Mako nodded. “I feel the same way.”

The bell rang and the tournament resumed. The Ostrich-Horses edged out the Shirshus. The Pythonacondas trounced the Walrus-Yaks with an early knockout. The Canyon Crawlers fought a hard game against the Goat Gorillas, with three of their members getting knocked out in all three rounds, but their firebender pulled out a knockout victory of the other team in the last minute.

That was the last of their strength, though. The Pythonacondas easily defeated the Canyon Crawlers in the second tier of the tournament. Meanwhile, the Spider-Cats fought a lively game against the Ostrich-Horses, winning the last two rounds with two players each on the court to the Ostrich-Horses’ one player. Yuki was the only player to avoid getting knocked out of the ring in every round.

“I’ve got to tell you, folks. Decades of traditional pro-bending matches had me skeptical, but these dynamite teams are proving four-player pro-bending has legs. Will the steady-handed Spider-Cats or the power-playing Pythoncondas win the day? Well, I certainly can’t wait to find out!”

The crowd cheered, and Korra and Mako were the loudest among them.

“Go Spider-Cats!” Mako yelled.

The Pythonacondas were all men (“It’s a battle of the sexes, folks.”). Their physiques were stereotypical of their bending type – a muscular and heavyweight earthbender, a lithe airbender, and middleweight fire- and waterbenders. They hit hard, but so did the Spider-Cats. In the first round, the Spider-Cats earned a narrow victory, with both teams losing an earthbender but the Spider-Cats’ firebender took out the Pythonaconda’s waterbender in the last second. The next round went the opposite. The Spider-Cats took out the Pythonaconda’s airbender early on, but lost their water- and firebender.

During the third round, Korra could barely stand it. The teams each took out a member of the other, one by one, until Yuki stood alone against the team’s earthbender – both of them in Zone One. He sent disc after disc in her direction. She moved as Korra once did, spinning and ducking between the projectiles.

Then one hit her in the back.

It hit Yuki hard, bouncing her from Zone One to Zone Two to Zone Three. Yuki tried to get her feet but then another disk hit her across the chest, nearly sent Yuki hurtling over the edge.

The crowd collectively gasped. Yuki was balanced on one foot at the end of the ring, waved her arms frantically as she almost fell back into the water, then used her airbending to bend herself face-first back onto the floor of the ring.

The crowd let out a breath, and then applauded. Mako jumped up onto his seat. “Yeah!” he cried out. “Great work, Yuki, yeah!”

The cheers continued as the round finished up, as Yuki fought her way back to the center of the ring.

“What a nail-biter!” Shinobi said, and Korra couldn’t disagree. “This puts the Spider-Cats and the Pythonacondas in a tie-breaker round. The ref is heading down there now to flip the coin, allowing the winning team to pick the element to end this legendary match.”

He didn’t need to. The crowd was crying out a word. When Korra realized what it was she leaned over the side of the balcony – her hands cupped around her lips – and screamed out the word with the rest of them.

“Air!”

“Listeners at home, it seems the crowd wants an airbending duel, and I’m inclined to agree. The Spider-Cats and the Pythonacondas are talking. They’re shaking on it, and my golly, the airbenders are stepping onto to the tie-breaker platform.”

Korra applauded as hard as she could, drunk off the excitement of the crowd. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d allowed herself to enjoy pro-bending like this. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had this much fun, either.

“So …” Mako said to Korra as the platform rose. “Can she come?”

“Of course!” Korra said. “No matter what happens, this match has been spectacular. I’d love to have her talents on the team.”

Mako gave her a hug. “Thank you so much. She won’t let you down.”

Korra smiled and turned back to the match.

The bell rang. Both airbenders began with a hard blast, lost an inch of footing. They blew air at each other in tandem, matching blast for blast. The Pythonaconda airbender lunged for Yuki, planning to get her in a grapple. Instead Yuki dropped herself to the ground, blew a blast of air up and sent the Pythonaconda flying off the platform.

The victory bell rang.

“And we have a winner!” Shinobi exclaimed. “The Sakuratown Spider-Cats, stars of the unofficial league, are the winners of Republic City’s Pro-bending Arena’s first Four-Player Pro-Bending Tournament!”

“Yay!” Korra screamed. Both she and Mako were hooting and clapping as confetti fell from the tops of the balconies.

The Spider-Cats may have been the winners, but they knew which player was the star of the game. The three muscular women lifted Yuki onto their shoulders, led her around the ring as she waved and blew kisses at the crowd. But Yuki wasn’t content to do just that.

“Wait a minute, folks!” Shinobi said. “Miss Yuki’s taking what appears to be a victory flight. She’s propelled herself into the stands and – hold on folks, looks like Republic City’s new pro-bending sweetheart’s got a sweetheart of her own – Mako of the Fire Ferrets!”

Yuki had her arms wrapped around Mako’s neck, was kissing him again and again.

“I did it!” she exclaimed through kisses. “Oh my Spirits, I’m so happy!”

“You did amazing, baby!”

Korra watched them kiss, tried to force herself to smile. “You really did great,” she finally said.

Yuki caught sight of Korra and shrieked. She hugged Korra, had tears in her eyes when she pulled away.

“I’m so happy that you’re here!” Yuki said. “This … You have no idea how much this means to me.”

Korra shrugged awkwardly. “It’s no big deal. Congratulations.”

“What an amazing night!” Shinobi said. “But I’m sure all of you at home want to know what Yuki has to say about tonight’s victory. Would she like to come up and give us a speech?”

The crowd chanted, “Speech! Speech!”

Yuki looked at Mako.

“Go say something. You deserve it.”

Yuki wiped the tears from her eyes and let out another shriek. She gave Mako a kiss and ran out the back of the bleachers to Shinobi’s box.

“And here she is!” Shinobi’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers to thunderous applause. “Yuki, what do you have to say about your historic victory?”

Korra expected a shriek that would break the loudspeakers. Instead, Yuki sniffled before she spoke. “This … This is not just my victory, Mr. Shinobi. This is not just a win for the Spider-Cats. This victory belongs to the airbenders – both those who played tonight and all airbenders around the world. Some fans didn’t want us to play because they believed that we’d ruin their favorite sport. Some airbenders think that pro-bending is a perversion of Master Tenzin’s goals of service and sacrifice. But I say that airbenders cannot be of the world if they aren’t a part of it, too. This …” Yuki sobbed. “This team is my family, just like airbenders are part of the human family. And we deserve a place there, just like in this game! And if the Air Nomads are a model of service, sacrifice and peace, I hope I can be a model of those values through my honesty and sportsmanship as a pro-bender. Go airbenders! Go Spider-Cats!”

The crowd went wild, Korra and Mako applauding along with them. Wow, Korra thought. The girl actually has a brain. Then again – Korra smiled, her heart fluttering as she thought of her Asami – it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been wrong about one of Mako’s girlfriends.

“What a speech, ladies and gentlemen. Our Yuki is clearly a master of words as well as airbending, a regular guru of the game. And might we ask about the handsome fellow cheering you on tonight?”

“Eeeeee!” The sound was so loud a wail of static feedback burst from the loudspeakers.

Ah, there it was, Korra thought as she winced.

“Oh my Spirits, my boyfriend Mako is here with me. I love you, Mako baby!”

“And we’re to understand that Mako is Mako of the famous Fire Ferrets.”

“Eeeee! Oh my Spirits, Mr. Shinobi. Like, even before I was an airbender the Fire Ferrets were my idols. I based my whole style of bending on Avatar Korra’s. She’s …” Yuki gasped as she tried to hold back a sob. “She’s my inspiration, and she came here tonight to see me, too!”

“She did!” Shinobi exclaimed. “And how does that make you feel?”

“Oh my Spirits! So honored! Eee, the only thing that would make it better is if her amazing girlfriend Asami Sato were here, too.”

Korra felt her heart drop into her stomach. She froze as the crowd dissolved into gasps and scandalized “oohs.”

Korra glared at Mako. His face turned red and despite his height he seemed to want to shrink into his shoes.

“Wow. You heard it here first, folks! The Avatar and the head of Future Industries are ladies in love, off the market for any man.”

“And because I’m dating their ex-boyfriend, I kissed the lips that kissed them!” Yuki laughed loudly. “Isn’t that amazing?”

Mako gulped and turned to Korra. “So … can Yuki still come?”

~*~*~

“You said ‘yes’?”

Korra had changed into her blue robes, was sitting in Asami’s armchair with her forehead propped on her first two fingers, staring at the floor as Asami stood in front of her, her face turning red with anger.

“It’s not a big deal,” Korra grumbled.

Actually, it was a huge deal, but Korra had already gone through the anger process in her trip back home and now just wanted to go to sleep and not think about it anymore.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Asami, we’ve always been an open secret. Even the President knows …”

“The President is a lot different than everybody,” Asami was pacing the room now. “I could lose investors because of …”

Korra rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. You’re the only game in town. Cabbage Corp. can barely put out a car without it getting recalled and their unofficial pro-bending team sucks.”

“This puts us at risk!”

“Oh, yeah, I feel at so much risk from a hate crime, living in this huge mansion patrolled by my 700 pound polar bear-dog and being the Avatar and all.”

“You don’t get it!”

“No, I don’t,” Korra stood up, dug her fists into her hips. “And you know what? I never got the idea that we couldn’t tell random people. I did it to make you happy and because I didn’t want the press breathing down my neck about a private thing but I don’t really care about her ‘outing’ me right now. I just want to move on and go to bed.”

Korra did just that, getting into their bed and pulling their covers over her head. Asami walked over to the edge of the bed and ripped them off.

“Why are you giving in to him?” Asami asked.

“Giving into him?” Korra propped herself up on the bed. “Asami, come on. Yuki can fight. I’d already told him she could come after she won all her matches. I’m not going to say no just so I can stand up to a principle I wasn’t sure I should have, anyway. Yeah, a lot of people don’t understand what we are, and some of them are violent, but if anyone’s going to live in fear for that, it’s not going to be me.”

“This …” Asami’s shoulders slumped as she sighed. “This isn’t about being ‘outed,’ Korra.”

Korra raised an eyebrow. “Well, I thought we were just talking about that for the last half-hour, so what is it about?”

Asami’s face scrunched up in anger. “Why are you putting Mako’s priorities above your own, above our own? Even if she is a great pro-bender, you don’t even like this girl.”

“What are you saying?” Korra stood up so she was looking directly at Asami.

“I’m saying I should be your priority, not our ex-boyfriend!”

“Excuse me? Since when is going to one match with a friend of mine who already has a girlfriend putting him above what you or I want? If you’re going to accuse me of something, just come out and say it.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. Maybe you’re the one with the guilty conscience!”

Korra scoffed. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Fine!”

The two of them got into bed, turned off the light. Perhaps Korra had been angrier than she thought. After about a half hour sulking she scooted herself toward Asami, tried to hug her in her sleep, but Asami turned and pulled the covers close around her. Korra sighed and moved back to her side of the bed, tried to fall asleep.

End Part One.


	2. Chapter 2

Sleep hadn’t so much cured Korra and Asami’s angry moods as softened them. The young women were chilly toward each other as Asami’s butler Si brought them breakfast, and during the rest of the early morning hours doing the last bit of packing for the Spirit World.

Korra sighed as she zipped up her bag for the last time. She had been so happy about this trip, despite the very real danger involved. She remembered those endless days in the Spirit World so fondly, how the sun shone and breezes cooled them, how sparkling butterfly spirits and adorable jelly-like plant spirits had flocked to them, drawn to Korra and Asami’s growing love.

They hadn’t meant to stay so long, but Korra had wanted it to last forever, sometimes still wished she was back there.

“Pardon me, Miss Sato. Miss Korra,” Si said, cutting them off as they prepared to exit through the front door. “But might I suggest leaving through the back? A crowd of reporters has been sitting outside for hours.”

Asami frowned. “Send them away.” She grabbed onto Korra’s wrist, tried to steer her in that direction, but Korra pulled her arm back and out of Asami’s grip.

“I’ll say something,” Korra said. She turned before anyone could object and opened the door.

Flashbulbs were already going off in the distance as Korra walked down the Sato Mansion’s steps, the long road to the front gates. Asami followed her, silent and frustrated. When Korra opened the gates, the reporters hummed with surprise and so many flashbulbs went off that all Korra could see was white light. Still, she didn’t try to shield her eyes.

“Avatar Korra!” a reporter called.

“Can you confirm the rumors about you and Miss Sato?”

“Are you hurt by Yuki’s allegations?”

“Have you always been attracted to women?”

“Didn’t you date your Fire Ferret teammate Mako before? Was that real?”

“On a scale of zero to six, zero being loving men only and six being loving women only, where do you fall?”

Korra cleared her throat. “Asami ... Asami Sato and I have been friends for years and ... and last year we became something more. I love her and ask for our continued privacy. Thank you.”

With these words Korra moved to walk back into the mansion, but Asami gripped onto her left bicep, pulled her back to her side.

“Korra has brought me happiness and joy after what was an overall rewarding but nevertheless grueling and life-changing three years. She’s brave and strong, but also kind and caring in a way that many who only know her from the pro-bending ring or her accomplishments as the Avatar may not see. I hope you afford us the respect that you would afford to any couple made up of a man and a woman. We’ll be taking no further questions.”

The reporters still rattled off a list of them as Asami pulled Korra away – questions about Korra, about Asami, even about Mako and Yuki. While they bothered her, Korra couldn’t help but be struck by what Asami said about her. Asami loved Korra; Korra knew that. Yet Asami had never said so in those words. Korra was so moved ...

And it annoyed her that she hadn’t said anything on that level, or would have known what to say if she’d tried.

~*~*~

Bolin and Opal were waiting outside the Spirit Portal when Korra and Asami arrived, walking up the green spirit vines after parking Asami’s car a few blocks away. The four of them met each other with hugs, Bolin running into Asami’s arms and Opal running into Korra’s.

“It’s so good to see you,” Opal said, although after a moment her grin faded. “How’ve you been, though? I heard what happened on the radio this morning.”

Korra groaned. “I don’t want to dwell too much on it because Yuki’s coming today, but ... ugh. Maybe it’s good this is all out in the open, though.

Opal nodded, her jaw firm. “I definitely think so.”

Asami snorted as she took off her backpack and started digging through it for something.

“Are you okay?” Bolin asked.

“I’m fine,” Asami snapped.

Korra rolled her eyes. “Yuki said she was your student. What was that like?”

Bolin suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh, man. Opal, do her laugh! Do her laugh!”

Opal shook her head, her cheeks turning red. “Bolin, come on ...”

“Please! They’ll love it.”

Opal giggled. “Okay, okay,” she said. Then she let out a shrill, chirping laugh that made everyone else laugh too.

Opal laughed pleasantly, in her own voice. “I mean, I don’t hate Yuki or anything and she wasn’t the perfect student, but she can be ...” Suddenly her eyes widened and she quickly shut her mouth.

Korra and Asami looked behind themselves in the direction Opal was staring. Mako and Yuki were walking up the vines, their hands clasped together. Yuki had on an airsuit, although she still wore her headscarf. Mako, too, was wearing an outfit Korra had never seen on him before – gray pants and a half-opened black and red-lined jacket with red buttons open to reveal a white collared shirt beneath. The jacket sleeves were short, although he wore a black cloth gauntlet over his left arm. (He looked nice, Korra thought.)

Yuki placed a fist against her other palm and bowed to Korra and Asami; it was hard for Korra not to roll her eyes and tell her to knock it off.

“I ... I really want to apologize for what I’ve done to both of you. I didn’t mean to hurt you at all and I made a terrible mistake. I just want both of you to know that I admire you so, so much and ...” Yuki snorted as tears ran down her face – a large, snotty sniffle that made Asami flinch. “I ... I cried all night about this when Mako told me how upset you were. I’m so, so sorry.”

Korra sighed and placed a hand on Yuki’s shoulder. “Look, why don’t we put this all behind us? We’ve got a job to do and right now all I want to know is that I can rely on you when we pass through that portal. Okay?”

Yuki sniffled and wiped her eyes, but then she smiled and nodded. “I won’t let you down. I, like, totally promise.”

Korra pet Yuki on the shoulder once before removing her hand. “Okay because I’m, like, totally going to hold you to that.”

Yuki squealed and laughed. She gave Korra a punch on the shoulder. “Oh my Spirits, you’re so funny! And – oh my Spirits – it’s Opal.” She scurried off to Opal’s side. “Hi, Opal!”

“I’m ... I’m really not funny though,” Korra said as she rubbed her shoulder, perturbed.

Mako came to Korra’s side, placed a hand on her other shoulder. “Thank you so much for understanding. You too, Asami,” he said, looking over at her.

“I didn’t forgive her,” Asami grumbled, walked over to Bolin.

Oh great, Korra thought. She sighed and muttered an “excuse me,” then walked to the highest point she could on the mound to the Spirit Portal. She clapped her hands.

“Okay, people. Quick discussion of Spirit Portal rules.” Korra waited a moment as Opal and Yuki broke off their conversation to listen to her with the others. “This Spirit Portal doesn’t open into the same spot as the others but it will open into the same place every time we go in. Travel is ... well, it’s not exactly straightforward and unfortunately from what I’ve read the Fengkuang Mountains have a tendency to stay hidden. We’re going to have to be cooperative and above all keep a cool head and our feelings in check.” Korra narrowed her eyes at Asami. “Otherwise we may never find them. Got it?”

The extended Team Avatar responded in nods and echoes of “Got it!” Korra had originally planned to go in first and have Asami bring up the rear, but given what was going on between her girlfriend and ex, she changed her mind.

“So, why don’t we enter into the portal in teams of two. Opal? Bolin? Why don’t you head in first? Do not go anywhere until everyone’s through the portal, okay? This is really important.”

Opal nodded. “Of course.

Bolin saluted Korra. “Hear you loud and clear, Avatar! Staying put. Being good. No running away to the Crazy Mountains without you.”

The two of them held hands as they ran through the portal. Mako and Yuki smiled as they took each other’s hands, started off at a slower pace.

“Eee! How exciting!” Yuki said, shaking their joined hands. “Have you been to the Spirit World before, Mako?”

“Yeah, but not for this long. And I’ve never seen what’s beyond the other Spirit Portals.”

“Oh, my Spirits, that is so cool!” Yuki exclaimed, her voice fading away as the two of them were swallowed in the yellow light.

Korra turned to Asami, held her hands. “Are you ready? Really ready? You know how it works in there.”

Asami sighed, exasperated. “I’m not happy with her, Korra. At All. And I don’t think you get why.”

“I do get why,” Korra insisted. “Look, I’m sorry and frustrated about what happened but, come on, can we just have a nice time right now and then get back to making fun of her later?”

Asami groaned. She was still holding Korra’s hands but stared at the ground.

“Please. Can we be happy?” Korra swung Asami’s arms back and forth. She started singing, “Happy girlfriends! Happy girlfriends! Happy Korra and Asami going into the Spirit Portal ...”

Asami smiled despite herself. Korra grabbed Asami around the waist and spun her around. Asami laughed, then briefly screamed as Korra almost lost her footing and slid a bit down one of the vines. “Okay, okay. Fine. But you owe me.”

“What do I owe you?” Korra asked. She put Asami down, but still held the taller woman flush against her. Asami drummed her fingers on Korra’s shoulders.

“Let’s completely take control of this thing. Let’s have a big party. Raise money for people like us. Invite all my business associates and some of our friends.”

“Mako and Bolin?” Korra asked.

“Mako and Bolin maybe, but not Yuki,” Asami said, her eyes narrowing.

“Narook caters.”

“Fine.”

“Deal.”

“I love you.”

The two of them kissed, then entered the portal.

~*~*~

When Korra and Asami came through the other side, a thunderclap greeted them.

Korra had seen it rain in the Spirit World before – a soft, gentle rain that sometimes fell when her or Asami’s emotions seemed overwhelming, or when the plant-like spirits needed something to thrive. But this was a deluge. The sky was a slate gray so dark it was almost black. Wind howled as it ripped around them. Rain poured over them in buckets, soaking Korra through her clothes in moments.

The other couples stood waiting near the portal. Opal looked out at the wet vista ahead, a hand shielding her brow, while Bolin stood beside her hugging himself. Mako had been watching the portal, the right side of his jacket draped over the top of Yuki’s head as she huddled under his right arm. Why did that look so weird to Korra? Weird and ... uncomfortable.

“Look, it was totally like this when we got here,” Bolin said. “I swear.”

“I believe you.” Korra stepped to the front of the group, Asami hesitating for a moment before joining her at her side. “I’m guessing ‘Think happy thoughts’ hasn’t been effective.”

“We’ve been as happy as you can get in weather like this,” Mako grumbled.

Yuki giggled beneath Mako’s jacket. “Well, you’re always a grumpy-puss, sweetie.”

Korra tried not to make a face.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this storm is blocking our feelings, though,” Opal said. “I’m no Jinora but I definitely feel like ... something is rotten about all of this.

Korra closed her eyes and inhaled, tried to get a feel for the mood of the Spirit World. Yeah, there was definitely something malevolent in the atmosphere. How much could they affect it, though?

“I want to try something,” Korra said. “Asami? Mako? Bolin? All of you walk in back of me. Opal and Yuki, get on either side of them so we’re in a triangle formation. I want to see how much of this we can blow away.”

Team Avatar got into formation quickly – Korra’s old friends huddling in the center with their flat, sad-looking, waterlogged hair – while Opal took the right side and Yuki the left. Korra started circling her arms, and the other two girls followed her lead. Yuki took a few extra turns to integrate in completely, but when they were all in tandem a strong wind circled the six of them, started to blow the rain and the clouds away.

“Let’s walk,” Korra commanded. “Keep your focus on our goal.”

The six of them started to move. As she led them, Korra tried to focus on the Fengkuang Mountains. She thought of the descriptions she’d read in Tenzin’s library, of the pictures of the presidential candidates that had been captured. As she thought an ache developed in her head, started to sting.

“So, like, um ...,” Yuki said nervously. “Is anyone else feeling some pushback from the storm because ...”

A wind whipped against their back, breaking the three girls’ formation and sending the six of them rolling forwards down a hill, screaming as they went. When they hit the bottom of the mountain, they heard a loud crack in the sky.

“Move!” Mako yelled. He stood up as the lightning bolt hurtled toward him, took it in both hands – screaming as he did so – then re-directed it away from them so it hit a tree.

Yuki shrieked. Korra felt a tight feeling in her chest, but didn’t have much time to dwell on it.

“We’ve got company!” Bolin said, pointing to the horizon. A shadowy, dragon-like spirit hurtled toward them. The group scattered although Bolin tried to stand his ground, bent up a wall of rock that the dragon headbutted into, scattering the rocks and knocking Bolin to the ground.

Korra gathered together the rainwater into tentacles around her hands, started hitting the dragon with them. Opal and Yuki assisted with airbending – Opal’s bending coming out in strong, powerful bursts, seemingly influenced by the earthbenders she’d been around all her life; Yuki’s a series of quick, pro-bending jabs. When Korra saw the spirit falter she took a deep breath, slipped into the Avatar State and started spirit bending it.

Korra had expected the spirit to be dispersed entirely, or to turn into something more solid and dragon-like. Instead, the spirit turned into a red, sheep-pig-sized snake. Its yellow eyes blinked and it flickered its tongue at Team Avatar as it stared at them.

“Avatar,” the snake-spirit said. “You’ve been away for a long time. Much hassss changed.”

“I can see that,” Korra said. “Is the storm because of the kidnappers? Are they causing this?”

“The Sssspirit World dissslikesss the invadersss. Using our landsss for human conc-sss-erns, petty human fightsss. A problem sssince the Sssspirit Portalsss opened, but Ssspirits can now come and go too. We take the good with the bad. Ssshe is not pleased, though.”

“She who?” Asami asked.

The snake-spirit hissed, its tongue flickering. “Ssshe who changed me. I don’t remember her face. It’ssss been ssso long sssince I’ve been myssself. Sssince evil energies changed me, evil energiessss sssshe drawssss. They are very ssstrong, pussshed back petty human army.”

“Are they really in the Fengkuang Mountains?” Mako asked. “Can you lead us there?”

“Yesss,” the snake-spirit said, nodding its head. “But asss a favor to the Avatar for changing me back. I will not return to the mountainsss myssself.”

As they started to follow the snake-spirit, Korra heard Yuki talking behind her.

“Mako, is your arm okay? You really had me scared!”

Korra looked back behind her and saw Mako shake his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I heard you scream.” Yuki wrapped her arms around his good one. Tears gathered beneath her eyes. “You sounded like you were in so much pain.”

“I haven’t had to re-direct lightning since we all fought Kuvira. It makes sense it would hurt, really. I just didn’t think it would be that bad. Please don’t let yourself get upset.” Mako placed a crooked index finger under Yuki’s chin, lifted it up so she was looking him in the eyes. “See? I can still work it. It’s okay.” He kissed her under her eyes, where her tears had fallen.

Korra didn’t know that had happened. What else did she not know about him? Why hadn’t she asked him about his injury? Kept in touch? She turned her head back to follow the snake-spirit, but for a moment she thought she saw Asami looking at her, suspicion in her eyes.

~*~*~

Spirit World journeys followed their own dream logic, and this was no exception. What started as a hilly walk became a hike through a dark forest, a slide down a glacier, swimming through the ocean – Korra pushing her three friends along while the two airbenders flew overhead. Their spirit guide changed as well. A horse. A sheep. A monkey. A rooster. It went through twelve changes overall if you counted the dragon, ending as a mangy, matted rabbit.

Said spirit-rabbit led them to a top of a mountain. They had been journeying for hours by the time they reached it, and in her semi-exhausted state Korra reeled from the deep horror that grew in her stomach when she looked across the huge valley floor – green near them but increasingly growing purple than a dark black – to the Fengkuang Mountains. In a way, they didn’t look much different from the mountain range outside Republic City at night, but just looking at them seemed to engender a creepy, gnawing feeling inside of you.

“I can’t go further,” the spirit said, its buck teeth chattering. “The valley takes about an hour to pass.”

Korra nodded. “Thank you so much, spirit. We’ll be fine from here.”

“Bolin ...” Opal whispered as the spirit hopped away, then disappeared. “Bolin, are you ...?”

Bolin ran a few paces away, then vomited on the ground. The other members of Team Avatar reeled back in disgust, with Yuki letting out a loud “Ewww! Yucky!”

“Sorry,” Bolin said as he wiped his mouth. “Ugh, just looking at that place makes me feel sick.”

“Me too,” Asami said. She shuddered as she rubbed the back of her neck. “It’s like having a bunch of leeches crawling all over me.”

“Hey, Korra,” Mako said, and Korra – to her own surprise – actually jumped when she realized Mako was at her side. “Is it smart to go in there? Since we’re all pretty exhausted I don’t know if we’re going to be able to fight the mountains’ influence without sleep.”

“But is sleeping within spitting distance of it okay, either?” Asami asked, her eyebrow raised and her lips tense.

Korra sighed. They both had good points, but when she looked again at Bolin, saw how sallow he looked, she shook her head.

“I think Mako’s right. We’ll sleep in shifts, that way we can avoid any outside attacks or any of the mountains’ weird mind tricks. Asami, you have the camping equipment, right?”

Asami’s nose scrunched up. “Sure.”

Korra started to think that she missed Asami’s home. More precisely, she missed the giant gym. Even more precisely, she missed the punching bag.

“Yuki, let’s collect some wood for a fire while they do that, okay?” Mako said.

“Okie-dokie!” Yuki exclaimed. She skipped away, singing “la la la” as she went.

Yeah, that punching bag would have been really nice right now. As she and Asami pitched the two tents in chilly silence, Korra tried to tell herself that her own parents sometimes got frustrated at each other during long trips or projects and this was completely normal and ... aargh, she knew exactly why Asami was mad and Asami was mad for a stupid reason and why didn’t Asami just say why she was mad instead of pretending she wasn’t like they both didn’t know why she was mad but Korra didn’t want to say anything because if she got mad than Asami would think she was guilty of something and why did this have to be so frustrating and ...

“Eee!” Yuki ran up behind Korra, making Korra wince as she shrieked in her ear. “Oh my Spirits, guess what, Korra? Guess what Opal brought? Opal brought sweet potatoes! Eee, Oh my Spirits I love sweet potatoes over a fire. After a hard day like this isn’t this the best news ever?”

“Sweet potatoes? You’re telling me to be excited about sweet potatoes? Are you kidding me? I have been getting the silent treatment for the last twenty-four hours. I have been traveling for the last eight hours. And for the last of that hour I have been putting up two stupid tents with my girlfriend who won’t talk to me because you are the most irritating, frustrating person I’ve ever met and if I didn’t love and respect Mako so much I would have told you to get out of my face and leave me alone forever two days ago! So no, I’m not particularly excited about some stupid sweet potatoes!”

That’s what Korra wanted to say. Instead, she muttered, “Great. That’s ... that’s just great, Yuki.”

Yuki squealed and jumped up and down while clapping.

Later, when Korra sat on a log with the rest of Team Avatar, chewing on the hot sweet potato, she tried not to resent its deliciousness.

Mako and Bolin were set to take the first watch, so Korra decided to get some sleep and went into the tent first. After a few moments of rest, she heard a scratching noise outside.

“Come in,” Korra yawned. She’d hoped it would be Asami, but she still smiled when she saw Opal step inside. “Hey.”

“Oh!” Opal winced, her cheeks turning red. “Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah, but it’s fine. Come on in.”

“How are you holding up?” Opal asked as bent down on her knees and sat on her heels. “You and Asami haven’t been talking too much.”

“She’s frustrated about Yuki,” Korra explained as she propped herself up by her hands so she was sitting up. “Well, at me, too. But that’s still about Yuki.”

“Yeah, I ... I kind of figured as much. Why did you bring her along, if you don’t mind me asking? ”

“She ...,” Why was Korra’s first thought of how it would have made Mako her happy. She shook her head. “I guess I just got the stars in my eyes after her tournament victory.”

“Well, that was pretty impressive.” Opal shrugged. “I liked her speech before she said that thing about you and Asami, too. I think some airbenders might find it self-serving but it was an interesting perspective. And not too surprising from what I know about her.”

“Oh, yeah?” Korra leaned forward, hands folded beneath her chin and elbows on her knees. “She said you were her teacher. What was that like?”

Opal leaned back. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she exhaled. “Interesting,” she said with a smile. “To be honest, she’s a good learner. I was actually kind of mad at her when she left after a year and a half of training to become a professional athlete. Games are great and all, but she was definitely capable of earning tattoos – Tenzin met her briefly once and said the same thing. A lot of my other students were happy, though. She demands a lot of attention. Like, beyond ‘I need extra help’ or ‘I want to add something insightful’ to ‘I may not understand that I’m in a class with several people and I want to have a long conversation with my teacher about stuff that may not even be relevant to the class, like songs on the radio I think are neat.’”

Korra laughed. “Sounds awful.”

Opal nodded and giggled. “She also is one of those people who can’t meditate for, like, a full minute. I used to count the seconds before she piped up and said something.”

Korra laughed even louder. “Well, I can’t be too hard on her for that.”

They were both laughing when the tent opened again. Asami had a frown on her face, but it softened when she saw Opal. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Nah, just good, old-fashioned talking-behind-someone’s-back,” Korra said, pleased to note the smile on Asami’s face as she sat next to Korra and slung an arm over Korra’s back and shoulders. “Are you happy now, sweetie?”

“I’ll be happy when we go home.” Asami kissed Korra on the cheek.

Opal smiled when she saw that. “Aww. You two are cute when you’re happy.”

Asami shrugged and chuckled. “Okay, I was stewing outside a bit and then I realized that Yuki is out there so I should be happy in here.”

“Good, good.” Korra reached around Asami’s waist and gave her a squeeze.

“Say,” Asami said, looking at the two of them. “Maybe we should do something without her sometime after this? Just Korra and I and you and Bolin? We can go to Kyoshi Island or something.”

“So ... we wouldn’t be inviting Mako at all, then?” Korra asked. The thought bummed her out.

Asami narrowed her eyes as she looked at Korra. “Would that be a problem?”

Opal coughed. “Well ... well, I can ask Bolin about it, maybe ... but ...”

The cloth doors to the tent rustled as two hands ripped it open. “Peek-a-boo!”

Oh, no. Korra could feel the collective shudder as Yuki giggled and crawled into the tent.

“I’ve had enough of the boys. I wanna be where the other pretty girls are!” Yuki laughed as she sat next to Opal. “Oh my Spirits, you know what? We could talk about all the boys in here. Except, oops! I guess Korra and Asami don’t do that anymore.” She laughed at her own joke. “What kinds of things do you talk about then?”

“From what I’m guessing, Korra and I talk about a lot more subjects than you and Mako do,” Asami snapped.

The insult surprised Korra, and she could see Opal visibly wince, but Yuki just laughed again.

“Oh, I know! You must have so much going on with your company. And Korra, you’re probably doing exciting Avatar stuff every day, right? Fighting bad guys and saving children and doing lots of cool stuff!”

“Well, um ...” Korra shrugged. “These days I actually just go to a lot of boring meetings and, uh, hang around the mansion ...”

As she trailed off Asami pulled her arm away and crossed her arms under her chest.

Yuki laughed. “Oh, that’s fun, too! Even the Avatar needs to rest. You’re, like, a real person and stuff. Eee! Oh my Spirits, you’re totally a real person and you’re talking to me that is still so cool.”

Asami’s breathing sounded outright angry now. Korra kind of wondered how she did that.

“Um,” Opal reached out and took Yuki’s hand. “You know, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen you. Why don’t we catch up a bit? Any big changes I don’t know about?”

“Oh ...” Yuki said, her voice trailing off. She had been sitting cross-legged, kind of rubbed her knees nervously. “Nothing ... big. Just playing my games and going on dates with Mako. I’m better at being a vegetarian now, although I might have had some squid in a jeon once last week but that was totally an accident.” Yuki laughed, although not like her usual laughter – it sounded soft and awkward. “And, um, I called my parents, no biggie ...”

Opal’s eyes widened. “You called your parents? Wow, I thought you swore never to talk to them again.”

Yuki shrugged. “Well, you know ... dating an orphan kind of changes your perspective on things like that.”

Opal nodded solemnly. “Oh, I know. I mean, even considering everything that happened with Baatar and how Mom’s still trying to get a foothold in Zaofu again because of all that I appreciate having the family I do and part of that is because of Bolin. Of course, they have a big family now. Did you get the chance to meet Grandma Yin yet?”

Yuki laughed, her palms flush against her cheeks. “Oh my Spirits, no! She seems so wild!”

“That’s an interesting word to use to describe her ...”

“You know,” Asami whispered in Korra’s ear. “I don’t see the need to listen to this.”

Korra’s lip curled in frustration. Sure, spending time with Yuki still felt like sand stuck in her boot but she was at least saying interesting stuff now. She ignored Asami and looked at Yuki. “So, um, Yuki. That means ‘snow,’ right? Is your family from a mountain region in the Earth Kingdom, then? You’re paler than most people who live at the poles.”

Yuki let out a laugh. “Oh my Spirits, like, I don’t know. I’ve got like everyone in my family. Northern Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation. I might even have some remnants of the Air Nomads, wouldn’t that be funny? I don’t know. My parents are both mixed and we just don’t keep track of things like that. But my name means snow, you said? Oh my Spirits, that’s so cool. Opal’s named for a pretty stone, I know that ... What’s your name mean, Korra?”

Korra shrugged. “I’m not sure, actually. Heard a few different things. ‘Valley’ and ‘Maiden’ are the words I’ve heard the most.”

“Eee! That’s so cool. Asami, what does your name mean?”

“A serial killer,” Asami grumbled.

Yuki laughed, louder than she had before. The laughter trailed off as Asami stood up. “That’s ... What a weird thing to say ...” Yuki said as Asami left the tent.

Korra groaned. She slammed her fist down on the ground, bending a small hole in it, before standing up. “Excuse me for a minute.”

She walked out of the tent, followed Asami down into the valley. She heard Opal say something to Yuki before following them as well.

“Asami!” Korra called as she climbed down the valley after her. “Asami, come on. Talk to me!”

Asami kept walking, didn’t turn back. “If you want to talk to someone, go back into the tent. You and Yuki can talk about boys all you want!”

Korra groaned. “Asami, that’s not fair!”

“No, it’s not,” Opal said as she caught up to Korra. “You were really rude to her.”

“Rude?” Asami scoffed and threw up her hands as she turned on her heels. “So you can make fun of her behind her back but I’m the one who’s rude?”

“I’ve said nothing behind her back that I wouldn’t say to her face!” Opal responded, anger creeping into her usually sweet voice. “And you know what? You two might be able to go back to your mansion when this is all over and forget about Yuki entirely, but that girl might be my sister-in-law one day.”

“Why are you bringing up my mansion? Like you didn’t grow up in a domed city-state with a fleet of servants and a personal chef?

“And come on, Opal,” Korra said, tried to force herself to laugh. “They’re not that serious.”

“Why are you laughing like that?” Asami snapped.

“L-Like what?” Korra asked, a sick feeling growing in her stomach.

“You’ve been weird about Mako ever since we saw him. What’s going on?”

“What’s going ... Do you think I’m cheating on you? Come on, other than the game I’ve always been with you! And if I were so set on cheating on you and winning him back why the heck would I bring her along?”

“I never said anything about cheating,” Asami said, her hands balled in fists at her side. “Funny that you seem to think I am, though.”

“Because if I didn’t think that, I’d think you were getting upset because I take his advice once in a while, and that would make you petty instead of jealous!” Korra screamed the words, knowing she shouldn’t but sick of Asami’s insinuations.

“Look!” Asami yelled, pointing to herself. “I am not being unreasonable here. I have every right to be mad at Yuki. And I have every right to expect that my girlfriend consider my opinion over her ex-boyfriend’s.”

“Our ex-boyfriend’s,” Korra frowned.

“Yeah, but I’m not the one looking sad whenever he kisses his new girlfriend.”

“I ...” the sick feeling in Korra’s stomach grew stronger, made her feel strangely hollow. “I don’t do that. Come on, Opal. Do I do that?”

Opal held up her hands. “I’m not getting into this.”

“What’s going on, Korra?” Asami said, her arms crossed over her chest.

“I ... Asami. Come on, I love you. I don’t go a day—an hour – without thinking about how much I care about you. It’s just ...” Korra’s voice broke. “It’s complicated.”

Korra expected more yelling. Instead Asami just stared at her, let her hands fall down at her sides as tears filled her eyes. Korra stepped forward, hand outstretched.

“Don’t follow me,” Asami whispered.

Korra watched her go as she walked further down the valley. She felt Opal’s hand on her shoulder.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Opal asked.

Korra shook her head.

“Well, let me know.” Opal climbed back up the valley. A few minutes after she was gone Korra sat on the ground, held her head in her hands as she cried.

“Idiot!” Korra punched the ground, felt it crumble beneath her fists with her earthbending. “You stupid, stupid idiot.”

There was a rustling in bushes somewhere above Korra. She looked up, expecting to see Opal. Instead, she saw an orange scarf billowing from the head of the airbender who ran away.

This was going to cost her, Korra thought with dread as she watched Yuki go.

~*~*~

“It’s nice to hang out, just the two of us,” Bolin said as he and Mako sat around the fire. The rest had done him well, and color returned to his cheeks. “Well, I mean, as ‘just the two of us’ as we can be with our friends and girlfriends sitting in a tent and we’re not really hanging out because actually we have to go into the Insanity Mountain and face peril tomorrow and ...”

“I know what you mean,” Mako said. He smiled and stretched his hand toward the fire. It made a slight ‘woosh’ sound as it grew. “It’s been a long time.”

“Too long. Actually, why didn’t you call more often?” Bolin rested his chin on his palm as he asked, a pout on his lips. “I called you a lot but rarely got an answer.”

“Well, you know ...” Mako shrugged, rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke. “I had to work a lot. Things happened. It was a rough year, actually. But that’s all in the past now.”

“Really? Do you want to talk about it?” Bolin asked.

Mako didn’t answer, was looking out in the distance. Bolin followed his gaze to see Yuki walking along the ridge of the valley, her arms tight against her body, hands folded and grasping her elbows.

“Hold on a minute,” Mako said. He got up and followed her. Bolin’s face fell as he watched his older brother go.

Yuki was still huddled over herself when Mako approached.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Yuki whirled back around to him, a distressed look on her face. “Oh, Mako! Can you hold me?”

“Yeah, of course.” He wrapped his arms around her gently, pet her hair and headscarf as she squeezed him back hard. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“Nothing, I ...” Yuki looked up at him, rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Mako, are you proud of me?”

“Of course I’m proud of you,” Mako said, patting her on the shoulders. “You’re a great fighter. You’re smart. You’re ambitious. And you did so well at that tournament.”

“Really?” Yuki tried to smile. “You’re not just saying that? It’s not just something you can see?”

“Anybody who gets to know you and sees what you can do can’t fail to see it. I promise.” He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re my little star.”

Yuki blushed and laughed, “Really?”

“You just need to shine for everyone.” Mako lifted her up by the waist, and she laughed as he twirled her around.

“Eee! I love you so much!” Yuki squealed.

“I love you, too.”

They drew in for a kiss when the wind suddenly howled, a screeching howl that chilled them both.

~*~*~

“Did you hear that?” Bolin asked when Korra had climbed back up to the ridge over the valley. He, Mako and Yuki were standing and waiting for her. Asami and Opal were further back, jogging toward the group.

“I think we all heard it,” Korra said as they arrived. The wind howled again and lightning crashed. Korra felt her stomach tighten. Was this storm their doing?

“What’s happening?” Yuki asked, panic creeping into her voice.

“I don’t know. But I don’t think we can wait anymore to enter the mountains. Asami?” Korra searched her girlfriend’s face for any sign of forgiveness, but only saw a cool determination. “You have the radios?”

Asami nodded. She pulled two thick, boxy machines with a microphone and antenna out of her backpack, handed one to Bolin and the other – despite Yuki’s attempt to reach for it – to Mako. “I have my own in my backpack. I altered these to set only to the other two’s frequencies. Reception may still be spotty in the Spirit World but I’m hoping that this will be a way for us to find each other if we get separated.”

Korra nodded and clapped her hands together. “Let’s move out, people.”

The six of them made their way through the valley. Korra took the lead on her glider. Next came Mako, using firebending to propel himself like a rocket, and Asami on a collapsible hang-glider that she powered through her own tiny rockets. Bolin made his way across on the valley’s floor, surfing on a wave of lava, and Opal and Yuki brought up the rear using their glider suits.

It was a rough journey through the storm. Even Korra felt her heart stop when a lightning bolt landed a few feet from Bolin, but by the time they were three-quarters of the way across, she was feeling confident.

Then a second bolt of lightning hit right in front of them, louder and thicker than any Korra had seen before. The bolt expanded into a glowing, crackling ball of light, then a screaming “caw”-like sound rang through the valley as the light reformed into a spectacular, several stories tall, electric phoenix.

Korra’s eyes widened. “Down!” she screamed. “Scatter!”

The members of Team Avatar listened, diving below the huge electric bird as it spread its crackling wings. Korra first saw Mako ease himself to the ground by increasingly smaller bursts of flame. Bolin surfed to the side and behind it. Asami dove toward the valley floor, followed a moment later by Opal.

Then Opal look up, saw her first.

“Yuki, no!”

Yuki looked like a tiny scorpion-bee next to the giant spirit. She struggled to keep afloat as she volleyed airblast after airblast at the giant spirit.

“Fall back!” Korra screamed, running toward the phoenix. “I’m commanding you to fall back.”

“I can do it!” Yuki yelled in response. She spun her hands together as she plummeted toward the ground, creating an airball and shooting it toward the phoenix’s face. Yuki spread out her arms, tried to catch some air and glide to the ground when the phoenix dodged the blast, thwapped Yuki with its sharp claws and sent her hurtling into the mountains.

“Yuki!” Mako screamed.

Korra put a hand on his arm for reassurance. She was already slipping into the Avatar State, earthbending enough ground up under her feet to catapult her through the air. A long blast of fire behind her helped Korra gain more ground, then she spread out her hands in front of her, using airbending to push her forward.

Yuki was in Korra’s sights, but they were still plummeting toward the ground a few feet apart. Korra bent some of the rain around her into a small whip, used it to catch Yuki’s wrist and yank Yuki towards her. They held hands, stomachs toward the ground, spinning in circles in the air together until they could both find control. Their spinning slowed so that they could both find their feet as they landed on the side of the mountain.

“Woah,” Yuki whispered as Korra came out of the Avatar State. “Oh my Spirits, thank you! That was so ...”

Korra grabbed onto Yuki’s shoulders, screamed in her face. “What the flame-o were you thinking?”

Yuki’s eyes widened as Korra shook her. “Whu-What’s wrong?”

“I told you to fall back. You could have gotten yourself killed. You could have gotten all of us killed! If you’re on a team, you have to listen.”

“B-But .... I ... I didn’t mean to. I just ...” Yuki covered her face with her hands, cried in great, hiccupping sobs that shook her shoulders.

“Oh, come on!” Korra slapped her palms against the side of her head, groaned as she ran them down her cheeks. “Look, I’m sorry. Please, stop crying. It’s just if I can’t depend on you ...”

“Yuki!”

Korra saw Mako running up the side of the mountain, the other three following behind him. Korra felt an ache in her heart, almost a feeling of betrayal, as Mako pulled Yuki away and wrapped her in his arms.

“Oh, sweetie. I was so worried. Are you okay? Honey?”

It didn’t help. Yuki pushed Mako away, sat on the ground. “I ruined it! I ruined everything!” she wailed. Yuki folded her arms over her knees and sobbed into them.

“Yuki,” Mako bent down on one knee, touched her shoulder. “Why are you talking like that?”

“Mako ...” Asami said, walking up to the two of them, her eyes dark. “You and Yuki need to go.”

“What?” Mako exclaimed.

“That’s not your decision!” Korra said.

“Well, when is anything my decision?” Asami snapped.

“Oh!” Korra threw up her hands. “I’m tired of this! I live in your house off your money in your life, Asami. I’m the Avatar. This is where I make the decisions.”

“You, or you and Mako?” Asami crossed her arms. “Don’t think I saw how you just looked at him!”

Mako’s face turned a shade paler. “... What? Looked at me like what?”

“Oookay ...” Bolin stepped between Korra and Asami, hands extended. “Let’s all take it down a notch, people. Look, everyone knows Yuki is really annoying and we’re all fighting because she’s getting on our nerves.”

Yuki looked up at him, horrified, but then wailed and buried her face in her knees again.

“Bolin!” Mako yelled.

“Yeah, Bolin!” Opal frowned. “What is wrong with you? Apologize now!”

Bolin held up a finger. “Hear me out ... Anyway, I thought long and hard about how annoying Yuki is and then I realized, hey, aren’t we all annoying? Korra gets mad really easily and punches people and thinks she knows best all the time. Mako has that cranky repression that leads to stupid decisions that hurts everyone but especially me. I know I bother a lot of you with my hilarious jokes and clever ideas when you want to do other, more practical, yet still boring things. And Asami ... well, how does your hair and makeup stay so perfect all the time? Save some awe-inspiring attractiveness for the rest of us.”

“What?” Asami asked. “How is that annoying? That’s not annoying. I don’t do anything annoying!”

“I know!” Bolin said, a huge smile on his face as he pointed at her. “You’re perfect and that’s so annoying. Also, Opal, I love you babe but I like dal only a little bit spicy and you make it medium spicy.”

Opal rolled her eyes. “Oh, make it yourself.”

“See!” Bolin spread out his arms and smiled. “We’re all annoying.”

“That’s enough!” Mako yelled. He was on his feet, now, glaring at all of them. “Asami, I haven’t seen these looks that Korra’s supposedly giving me but I’ve seen the way you all look at Yuki and how you treat her and I’ve had enough of it. So, hooray, you all get your wish. We’ll leave and you never have to see us again.”

“No!” Korra exclaimed, followed by Bolin and Opal.

“Don’t leave. Yuki’s fine, okay?” Opal said. “She ... she has her good qualities.”

“Yeah!” Bolin said, watching helplessly as Mako gathered a sniffling Yuki into his arms. “Come on, bro, you’re a crucial part of Team Avatar. These are all our friends.”

“Well,” Mako’s voice was low, he looked up at Korra and glared. “Last I checked your friends wanted you to be happy.”

Something inside Korra broke as Mako turned away. Asami reached for Korra’s hands, but she ran toward Mako.

“Wait!” Korra called, outstretching her arm. “Please, don’t go!”

Then, Korra wasn’t there. She didn’t see the mountains and dark skies but the back halls of the pro-bending arena. Her hair had turned long, the arm in front of her wasn’t wearing her long, blue finger-less glove but the brown and dark green Equalist uniform, and Mako wasn’t walking away from her but bent back, Amon above him poised to take his bending.

She blinked again and it was all gone. She was back on the mountains – short hair and her own blue clothes and all. Mako was staring back at her, horrified.

“You saw it, too?” Korra asked.

He nodded.

“Saw what?” Asami asked, furious.

“Why won’t you let me go?” Mako whispered, and Korra thought she saw the hint of a tear in his right eye.

Before Korra had time to think about what he said, a screech rang through the air. Korra turned to see the phoenix flying up the mountainside, up behind Asami.

“No!” Korra screamed. She tried to run but someone else was already flying past her. As the phoenix tried to grab Asami, Yuki barreled into her. They rolled together along the ground, avoiding the phoenix’s diving attack.

Korra was calling Asami’s name and Mako was calling Yuki’s. Korra felt the ground collapse beneath her feet, and then she was falling. All of them were falling.

~*~*~

When the dust settled, Bolin and Opal were lying on the ground, alone.

“Where is everyone?” Bolin looked around, cupped his hands around his mouth. “Mako! Korra! Asami! ... Yuki?”

“Wait!” Opal said, blowing some of the air away. “I’m worried the phoenix may hear us. And did you see the ground collapse? I did, but where’s the crater?”

“I don’t know. Hold on.” Bolin stomped on the ground. He looked confused for a moment, then changed position and did it again. “Okay, I can’t seem to be able to earth- or lavabend this stuff. This is bad.”

Opal made a “hmm” noise, curled the side of her index finger along her chin in thought. “Oh! The radio! Try that!”

“Oh, yeah!” Bolin pulled it out of his pocket, switched it on and heard the static crackle. “Mako? Asami? This is Bolin. Can you hear me? Are Yuki and Korra with you? Mako? Asami? Hello?”

Opal sighed, distressed. They heard a caw overhead.

“I was just thinking we could get more signal from the top of the mountain,” she said. “But there’s that phoenix ...”

“We might not have another choice,” Bolin muttered.

Opal sighed. They held each other’s hands for a moment, then started climbing.

End Part Two.


	3. Chapter 3

~*~*~

Nothing about this made any sense.

When Korra opened her eyes after landing, she found herself in a tunnel. Yet there was no debris around her, no light above her. It was like she had always been there.

Korra tried to bend the tunnels around her, but they wouldn’t budge. Her blood turned cold until she extended her hand, lit a flame in it. So the Fengkuang Mountains weren’t really made of earth, then. Good thing. For a moment there she felt like ...

Korra gasped. Suddenly she was no longer in the tunnel but looking over the edge of a cliff, a tear running down her cheek. She stumbled back, landed on her butt in the snow. She reached for her hair and found her old ponytails.

“It’s only an illusion,” Korra said to herself through deep breaths. Though when she tried to slip into the Avatar State, it wouldn’t come. Korra looked around, panicked. Then her mouth dropped open.

Mako was here. Although not Mako as he was now, but then – the red scarf, the spiky hair. As she approached him, she felt the echoes of her memory, the echoes of running toward him and feeling his arms around her as he spun her in the snow. Yet Mako wasn’t looking at her, had his back turned as she got closer.

“Mako,” she said, reached for his shoulder.

He turned around – but it wasn’t like in her memories. In fact, she’d never seen him this way before. He had his new haircut, but at least three days’ worth of stubble on his chin. He wore dark pants and a ratty sleeveless undershirt, his arm wrapped in a cast.

“Leave me alone!” Mako yelled at her. “Why did you bring me here? Why won’t you --”

Korra could only stare at him, dumbfounded. “What happened to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” He turned away, started running.

“Mako, wait!”

Korra ran after him through the snow. It suddenly grew dark, and the mountain range became a crowd lit by lanterns. When she heard the carnival music she felt her heart seize up. A person in the illusion waved a stuffed air bison in her face and she punched it, feeling satisfied when she knocked the fake person down. Korra caught a glimpse of Mako’s back in that odd coat he wore, ran even harder after him, although when she blinked again it was a police uniform.

“Oh, come on!” Korra complained as she followed him through the offices of the Republic City Police Headquarters.

“Go away!” Mako yelled, covered his ears.

“I wasn’t thinking about this memory!” Korra exclaimed. The sound of a desk being kicked over echoed through the mirage offices. “I’m not the one bringing you here. We’re both bringing each other back through our memories. So let’s talk about it, okay?”

“What’s there to talk about?” Mako turned around, and he was dressed in his winter coat again. Korra shuddered when she looked around them at the dimly-lit hall in the Southern Water Tribe Palace. “Didn’t we say everything to each other a long time ago?”

Korra sighed. Their breakup. It had been so hard, this moment. She still remembered how she’d rehearsed in her head over and over what she would say, how much she hadn’t wanted to do it, how she hadn’t wanted to give up his love but thought – knew? – that she should.

“Back then, I think so. But that was three years ago,” Korra placed her hands on Mako’s shoulders. “Just because we aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend anymore doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work on our friendship.”

Mako sighed, took Korra’s wrists and removed her hands from his shoulders. “Isn’t the whole problem that we can’t admit we’re more than just friends?”

The lighting around them changed, and so did the two of them. When Korra looked around she saw the pavilion outside the pro-bending arena, the golden building and the dark water. Yet it was more than that. When Korra looked at Mako, she was seventeen all over again, seventeen and eager to steal what would be her first kiss.

Korra’s breath hitched as she felt Mako’s hands on her cheeks. She felt herself looking up towards him as he craned down ...

~*~*~

Asami woke in the snow.

For a moment, she thought she was dreaming. Part of her knew it all wasn’t real, even as her knees knocked and she felt the need to huddle in on herself as ice and wind whipped around her, tossing her hair around and chapping her cheeks. Asami blew into her hands, looked around.

“Korra!” she called out. She was still angry, but at the moment worry was the foremost emotion on her mind. “Korra, can you hear me?”

Asami looked ahead of her, saw two glowing lights in the distance. As they grew closer, they turned into Korra’s eyes. Korra rode toward her on Naga, whose eyes glowed like hers, wearing a regal Water Tribe robe and carrying a spear.

Asami’s breath caught in her throat. Looking at Korra this way, Asami felt love, but not the love for her kind and noble friend, not the love for her playful and sweet girlfriend – it was the kind of love that made her want to fall on her knees and bow.

“You’re ... you’re beautiful,” Asami whispered.

Korra turned away from her.

“Wait!” Asami called as Korra rode off on Naga into the snow. The wind whirled around Asami even faster, blinded her. She fell to her knees, and when she looked up Korra was looking down at her, arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

“Korra?” she asked. “Korra, what’s wrong?”

“Why would anything be wrong?” Korra asked, a sneer on her face. “I’m the Avatar. Why would I need you?”

Asami screamed as she felt the ground collapse beneath her again. Yet when she landed, it wasn’t in a snowy wasteland, but a classroom, one she didn’t recognize.

“Where am I?” Asami asked. She gasped when she heard her voice, which sounded so much higher than normal. She put her hands to her chest, cheeks turning red as she felt the flatness there. When she looked down at herself she was a child again, wearing a uniform she also didn’t recognize. “What’s going on?”

“Hey, nice hair, weirdo. Did your, like, Mom, brush it?”

Asami’s eyes caught sight of the boy who had spoken. He was pudgy and tall for his age, stood at least a head over the other students who were crowding around a girl as she walked to her desk. Her long, flat, straight hair hid most of her face as she hunched over, clutched her books to her chest.

“Hey, idiot!” A dark-skinned girl in the crowd jeered. “She asked you a question. Why aren’t you answering? Is it too hard for you, you ugly pentapuss-face?”

“What’s five times five, moron?” another boy asked.

“Which Avatar defeated the Fire Nation, stupid?”

“Do you even know what city we live in?”

The long-haired girl slammed her books down on her desk and whirled around to look at the crowd surrounding her. “Shut up! I know the answers to all those questions, you smelly losers! So go away and leave me alone!”

The crowd erupted into a chorus of laughter and derisive “ooh!” noises. Some of the kids parroted her words back to her as she sat down at her desk, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

A teacher came in – a thick-framed woman with light, wrinkly skin and gray hair. The kids immediately scrambled to their seats and Asami, not knowing what she should be doing but willing to follow the dream logic of the vision, took a seat behind the long-haired girl.

Was this what school had been like? Those years felt like ages ago to Asami. She remembered a few girls saying petty things behind her back (usually about how, when you really thought about it, Asami wasn’t really that pretty). Yet Asami had never seen anyone in her school bullied on this level.

“Open your math books to page 352. We have a lot to cover on fractions today.” The teacher looked up and sighed as she caught the waving hand of a pretty girl with glossy black curls. “Yes, Ji-min. What do you want?”

“Mrs. Ya, Yuki called the entire class losers and told us to shut up, and all of us talked about it and we think that was very hurtful and that Yuki should be punished.”

Asami’s eyes widened. This was Yuki in front of her? Asami had barely recognized her.

Yuki stood up at her desk, indignant. “I did not! Well ... okay I did but everyone else was making fun of me and calling me an idiot.”

Mrs. Ya’s eyes rolled as the class burst into laughter. She groaned and shook her head. “Class, do we need to do this every morning? This is a complete waste of your time and mine.”

“But they started it!”

“Well, you didn’t have to respond, did you?”

“But I’ve tried so hard to ignore them, and ...”

The teacher turned away, tired of listening, and looked over at the boy who had first bullied Yuki. “Kuo, I told you not to sit next to Shang anymore. You need to sit with Yuki.”

“But she breathes too hard and I can’t concentrate with her gross, disgusting noises.”

Yuki let out a frustrated shriek and ran out of the room.

Asami wondered for a moment what to do next, but immediately after she had that thought she realized she wasn’t in the classroom anymore. She stood behind Yuki in an unfamiliar kitchen, and Yuki stood at the opposite end of a table where three people were seated.

When Asami saw Yuki’s family the first word that came to mind was “gray.” They were old for parents of an eight-year-old, had to be at least in their mid-fifties. The mother’s brown and the father’s black hair were both liberally streaked with gray. They also both wore gray and beige clothes, ate off gray and white plates, and seemed more interested in reading their gray and black newspapers than talking to their daughter. Even their other daughter, who was several years older than Yuki, brought to mind the image of dull slate with her gray cheongsam under an off-white labcoat, her brown hair tied in a tight, staid bun and her gray eyes hidden behind gray-rimmed glasses.

“Why won’t you ever listen to me?” Yuki asked, although it sounded more like a plea than a question.

Her older sister groaned and rolled her eyes. “How often are you going to come home from school complaining? It’s so tiresome and immature.”

“Yuki.” Her mother leaned forward to the edge of the table, rested her hand on Yuki’s wrist. “We’ve told you several times before that this is the best school for you. Your father and I did a lot of research and this school perfectly meets your intellectual needs, your disciplinary needs and our budget. We simply can’t send you anywhere else.”

“But I’m miserable!” Yuki wailed.

“Only you can decide how to feel, dear,” her father said. He only looked up for a second from his newspaper as he spoke to her. “If you’re unhappy it’s because you’ve chosen to be unhappy. When you choose to be happy you’ll do fine at your school.”

“But how can I choose to be happy when everyone’s being mean to me all the time and the teacher doesn’t care?”

“Well, honey.” Her mother smiled in what Asami assumed was meant to be a benevolent way. “Don’t you think that with your crying and outbursts you set yourself up for their teasing? Aren’t you, in the end, baiting them?”

Yuki sobbed and yanked herself away. She turned around, ready to bawl her eyes out, when she came face-to-face with Asami.

The two young women – and they were young women again, now – stared at each other awkwardly. Asami felt like they’d somehow both walked in on each other on the toilet.

“Did ... Did you see all that?” Yuki asked.

Asami nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was in an illusion myself and it just ... kind of happened.”

“It’s okay.” Yuki smiled weakly, picked at her nails. “I think I might have seen your illusion too. Like, Korra riding on Naga and being mean to you? That didn’t really happen, did it?”

“No, I ...” Asami rubbed the side of her head and sighed. “I’ve been kind of upset lately.”

Yuki hung her head. “Because of me, right?”

Asami paused. What Opal said before about Asami being rude, about how Opal would say her honest opinions to Yuki’s face if confronted with them, was foremost in Asami’s mind. She’d been so angry about Yuki outing them, about Korra’s catering to Yuki and simultaneous jealousy over Yuki and Mako together. Yet after what Asami had seen, after realizing how much her behavior could have seemed like another round of those bullies to Yuki, Asami’s anger didn’t feel quite as comfortable.

“I know I’m annoying,” Yuki finally said, letting Asami off the hook. She sniffled and wiped a tear from her eye. “I’ve always been annoying. It’s like whenever I’m happy I just, like, get all this boundless energy inside me and I get excited and I say really, really stupid things like I did at the tournament and ... and then people don’t like me.”

She turned away from Asami, picked at her fingernails some more. “My life got so much better when I became an airbender, people respected me so much more, that sometimes I forget what it’s like ... what I’m really like. I guess since Mako loves me I thought it would be different this time.” Yuki sniffled, covered her face with her hands. “You all used to mean so, so much to me.”

Asami raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?” she asked. But as soon as she did, the space around the two of them changed and Asami gasped.

~*~*~

Mako’s forehead touched against Korra’s. Just his forehead. He sighed deeply, squeezed her shoulders.

“A part of me could kiss you. A part of me may always want to.” Mako took his hands off her, turned away. “But that time is over for me.”

Korra suddenly felt sick. She sat on the ground, held her head in her hands. Part of her felt heartbroken. Another part of her wanted to throw up. But mostly she felt ... relief.

I didn’t want that, Korra realized. She tried to hold onto the thought, found it reassuring and safe. She placed a hand over her mouth, tried not to cry.

“I don’t know what just happened,” Korra said, her voice wavering. “I love Asami. For the past year I never once thought of leaving her and I don’t want to lose her but ...” her voice trailed off. She felt so confused.

“But it’s different now.”

Korra looked up at Mako’s back. They were their current selves again, and while Korra could see the “true” gray and brown tunnels of the mountains they seemed unstable – like they could fall away and become darkness or illusion at any moment. Even the space where she physically sat didn’t feel particularly real, but like the feeling of her foot falling asleep.

Mako’s shoulders fell up and down as he sighed. It seemed hard for him to speak. “You break up with someone when you still love them and they still love you, too. It hurts, but ... hey, they’re still in your life. You still have their friendship. You don’t kiss and hold hands anymore, but maybe that doesn’t matter. You tell yourself it never did, anyway. You think you know where you stand with them. You think you know how they feel.” Mako wrapped his arms around himself. His voice was quiet as he hung his head. “And then they find someone else.”

Korra didn’t say anything back. She couldn’t. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat as Mako sat next to her. He rested his wrists on his knees, which were bent up in front of him, and slumped back against the wall of the tunnel. When Korra blinked and looked at him again he turned back into the disheveled, bandaged Mako she’d found in the snow.

“Mako?”

He sighed and looked at the cast on his arm. “The last year was hard for me,” he muttered. “But look, don’t feel sorry for me or anything. I’ve still got a lot of – what did Bolin call it? Cranky repression to work out. Maybe you’re lucky you hate Yuki. Sometimes I wondered if I could feel better about the whole thing if I hated Asami. Just my luck you’re both people I care about.”

“I don’t hate Yuki,” Korra said. When Mako responded by just staring blankly ahead, she sighed. “Okay, in the beginning I hated her a little, but she has her good qualities, like Opal said. I just ... I just don’t understand you and her as a couple at all. I mean,” Korra snickered. “If you wanted to date someone that annoying why didn’t you date Prince Wu?”

“Prince Wu?” Mako turned to her, the side of his mouth curled up in horror. “Oh, come on. She’s not that bad!”

Korra made a noise and shrugged.

Mako scoffed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. First of all, Wu’s idea of compromise is coming up with something ‘fun for both of us to do’ and pretending it was your idea. Second, working for him took me away from the best thing going in my life other than being a part of Team Avatar, and that was my job. And third, even if I wanted to he’s the type of guy who would get drunk, try to climb into bed with you, and then after you kick him out spend the next morning proclaiming loudly to everyone how much he loves girls.”

“That’s a ... pretty specific hypothetical,” Korra said with a smirk.

Mako shuddered. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of him for growing up and abdicating, but working for him was such a nightmare. I can’t imagine willingly doing it all again and not even getting paid.”

“You know,” Korra let out a hint of a laugh she’d been trying to hold in. “You don’t need to prove anything about how open-minded you are to me. Like, saying ‘I don’t date guys’ would have been acceptable.”

Mako didn’t say anything. He drummed the fingers of his unbandaged hand against his knee.

Korra’s mouth dropped open. Then she slowly smiled. “No way. Really?”

Mako groaned. “Yes,” he muttered.

Korra gasped. “That’s amazing! It’s just ... wow. Both of us all this time? How did you know? Did you always know?”

“What are you doing?” Mako yelled at her. “I bring a girl I love with me to meet you and you get weird but you figure out that I had, like, a three-week thing with some guy who decided to move on right when it was getting interesting and now we’re gossiping buddies? Are you the only girl I’m ever allowed to love or something?”

Korra felt her heart and stomach sink. She could have just said she was happy because they were friends and glad they had their sexuality in common, because she did feel that way to an extent. Yet she also knew another evasion wouldn’t be right.

“Maybe ...” Korra sighed. “Maybe I feel that way about you. The one guy I loved.”

Mako frowned. Korra thought she saw his face turn red. He slammed his unbandaged fist on the ground. “I hate this stupid conversation!”

Korra watched him as he got up and started to walk away. “Mako?”

He whirled around, yelled back at her. “I’m not a collection of your memories, okay? I’m not some picture you can stick in an album and pull out to look at whenever you want to think about the past. I ...” Mako started pacing, his free hand pressed against his forehead. “I hate that you’re doing this, okay? I spent a full year working to move past this and you come here and dump it all on me again ...”

Korra stood up, a frown on her face and her hands balled into fists. “Well, I’m sorry for you, but I haven’t exactly had a year to get over it, okay?”

“Yes, you did!” Mako screamed in her face. “It’s called dating another person, Korra.”

“Hey!” Korra yelled back, pressed a pointed index finger into his chest. “I didn’t exactly owe you anything, either, buddy. We both broke up with each other.”

Mako sighed, shook his head. “No, but ... a phone call before you left for the Spirit World would have been nice.”

Korra folded her arms, stared at the ground for a moment. It seemed to swirl beneath her. “Would you really have been less hurt by the news?”

“It wasn’t about that. It was about respect, or ...” Mako waved his hand. “Look, forget it. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t share a lot of what I felt with people because I knew my feelings weren’t fair or rational at all. I mean, we’ve been broken up for several times longer than the time we were together. Even if most couples don’t begin their relationship saving a city and end it saving a world ...”

“It was never just that for us, though. Being boyfriend and girlfriend.” Korra rubbed her arms, sighed. “Look, maybe it was bound to happen. I’d been separated from everyone for so long when I was sick. But when I see my other friends now I feel like I still know them. Sometimes I do with you, like that time at the games. And then I hear Yuki say that thing about how your arm hurts when you re-direct lightning and I just think ... I don’t know you anymore. Not in the same way.” Korra shrugged. “Comes with the territory, I guess.”

Neither of them said anything. Maybe they’d both argued themselves out. That felt familiar, at least. Conflict was so common between them, wasn’t it?

Not like her and Asami. Of course, that only made what was going on between her and her girlfriend now so much more nerve-wracking. They knew how to be happy together. She wasn’t sure if they knew how to disagree.

“So, now what do we do?” Mako asked. “Despite what I said before, I don’t really want to walk out of your life forever.”

“I don’t want that either,” Korra sighed, knocked against the wall of the mountain and watched it wobble. “We’re going to have to find a way out of this place somehow. Want to catch up on the past year as we go? Try to start over?”

Mako’s brow furrowed, skeptical. “I guess it beats sullen silence,” he said.

Korra lit a flame in her hand. Mako did the same and followed her through the tunnels.

~*~*~

Asami turned around in a slow circle, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. “What is this place?”

“My old room,” Yuki said.

It reminded Asami of some weird cross between a shrine and a madman’s hideout. The room was small, far smaller than any of the rooms in Asami’s mansion or even the dorms at Air Temple Island. It had all the typical furniture of a bedroom – a bed, a desk with a radio, a wardrobe and a small bookcase that was overflowing with romance and epic novels, poetry, and a huge oversized set of ‘The History of the Avatars.’ Yet the walls were plastered with posters, pictures and newspaper articles of the Fire Ferrets.

Asami assumed pictures of Mako would dominate, but it was actually Korra’s face everywhere: Korra winning her first pro-bending match, Korra on Tarrlok’s task force, Korra and Mako in the pro-bending arena, hugging after defeating Amon. Yuki had a huge poster on her door of the Fire Ferrets that the arena had sold in the lead-up to the championship game, several paintings of Korra by sidewalk artists, even a few hand-sewn dolls. Her collection had become so large that Yuki had even put a few pictures on the ceiling.

“It’s ...” Asami shook her head. What word could she say? Amazing? Horrifying? Creepy? Weird? ... Could she have a few?

“Unbelievable,” Asami finally said.

Okay, that was a good choice.

Yuki laughed. “I knew about you, too!” She pushed aside the edge of a huge Korra poster and pointed to a small picture from a society newspaper of Asami and Mako together at Tarrlok’s party for Korra. It was then that Asami noticed Yuki looked different. A lot different.

“Um ... your hair ...”

Yuki reached up and touched the two brown ponytails that hung on either side of her face like Korra’s old hairstyle. “Oh!” Yuki laughed and blushed. “Yeah, in retrospect I was a little embarrassing. But I used to love the Fire Ferrets so much ... My family moved from Lu Bian Yan to Republic City a year before the Fire Ferrets really got big. The first match I ever saw was the one where Korra joined the team and ...” Yuki sighed. She clasped her hands together and looked up at her collection. “I thought she was so amazing. She had such a hard time but she never gave up, and then she just kept getting better and better. I went to so many games, and when I couldn’t go I listened to the match on the radio. It just ...” Yuki’s voice trailed off. She sniffled. “It just made me so, so happy. It was the only thing that made me happy for a while.”

Asami smiled a little bit. Part of her still thought this was all deeply weird and kind of creepy. “Korra was really good. I liked watching them play, too.”

To be honest Asami’s feelings were more complicated than that. Sometimes that first year of Team Avatar was painful to think about, considering everything that happened with her father, everything that happened between her and Mako. Yet she did have a lot of good memories of the pro-bending matches.

That, and getting to know Korra. She placed a hand over her heart.

The space around them wobbled. Suddenly they weren’t in Yuki’s room anymore but in an airplane hangar. Asami clutched her chest and fell to her knees as she watched herself in the mecha tank, shooting a bola at her father’s feet and watching him fall.

“Asami!” Yuki ran to her side, placed a hand on her shoulder. “Oh my Spirits, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing ...” Asami placed a hand on her forehead, tried not to cry as Yuki helped her to her feet. Which was weird, considering how Asami towered over her.

Yuki looked around. At this point Asami’s memory had faded, and only the dark tunnels surrounded them. “Hey, Asami. I’m really sorry. I know we’re not, like, friends and that you don’t like me but I guess it’s not really fair to talk about my stupid problems with my parents considering what happened with yours. And they weren’t so bad. I mean, never wanted for anything growing up and even if they didn’t understand me they were never mean. They even told me they were happy about my pro-bending career when I called them recently it’s just, like ... I don’t know, baggage and stuff. They’re a little weird.”

Yuki’s parents. Asami had to smile. She wasn’t sure what was happening. Maybe it was the stress of being angry for so long. Maybe it was the weirdness of their recent danger, how it had started with this girl who she hated saving her and taking Asami into her memories, memories which involved this girl’s room plastered with pictures of Asami’s girlfriend. Maybe she was just scared and losing it in general.

But whatever the reason for it, Asami laughed. It started as just a chuckle at first, but quickly turned into the giggles. Then she clutched her stomach as she bent over and laughed.

“Asami?” Yuki asked, confused, but as Asami continued to laugh Yuki started to laugh along nervously. She tried again. “Asami, what’s ... why are we laughing?”

“It’s ...” Asami shook her head, tried to hold up her palm to Yuki as if indicating for her to stop, and ended up lowering it in a fit of laughter again. “I can’t ... it’s ... It’s too mean. It’s not even that funny.”

“No! No!” Yuki chirped. “You have to tell me now. You have to!”

“Okay, okay, I ...” Asami wiped the tears from her eyes. “When I saw your parents I just ...” Asami laughed again. “I just got this vision of like this ... this family of pigeon-geese has an egg.” She snorted. “And the egg hatches and out comes a parrot-lizard!”

Yuki doubled over laughing – her huge, annoying, chirping laugh. She laughed so hard she started pounding on her thigh, which only made Asami laugh harder.

“I’m a parrot-lizard!” Yuki shouted. “Squawk! Squawk! I’m a parrot-lizard!”

Asami laughed and shook her head. “Hey, when we first met didn’t you say some stupid thing about my hair looking like a bird or something?”

“Oh my Spirits, not like that!”

They laughed again, together. At one point Yuki reached out and put her hand on Asami’s bicep but Asami gently pushed it away and shook her head. That only made Yuki laugh harder.

“Say ...” Yuki giggled. “Doesn’t this place, like, drive you crazy or something?”

Their laughter slowed, then came to a dead stop. The smile melted off Asami’s face, hardened into an expression both serious and more than a little worried.

“We better try to find a way through and out of this place before we lose it,” Asami said.

“Uh-huh,” Yuki nodded.

“Let’s start walking.”

~*~*~

Korra and Mako had decided on a plan of moving left whenever they were faced with a fork in the tunnels. Mako had at one point changed his mind, wondered if trying to think about nothing would be a better strategy for getting through the mountains, but the environment seemed to pinpoint negative and distressing energy, try harder to bring it out when you repressed it. At one point, when the tunnels turned into a dark alley and Mako heard the sound of firebending, Korra suggested they start talking again.

“So, what is the deal with you and Yuki, anyway?”

Mako sighed and rolled his eyes. “How do you expect me to answer that question? Why do you love Asami?”

Korra raised an eyebrow at him. “Uh, you’re the one who dated her first. Don’t you know?”

“No. I know that I dated Asami because she was friendly and generous and when I first saw her I thought she was beautiful. I have no idea why you dated Asami.”

Korra sighed. She looked at the ground below her, watched them turn from dust to tiles.

“Are you okay?” Mako asked. “I mean ... you’re happy with Asami, right?”

“Of course. Most of the time.” Korra looked up. They were at Varrick and Zhu-Li’s wedding, were even wearing the clothes they wore there as they watched themselves. For a moment, Korra saw her past self with Mako. In the next, she was with Asami, talking and looking out at the Spirit Portal.

“I saw the two of you together like that,” Mako said to Korra. “I didn’t think anything of it ... until I watched the both of you leave.”

Korra remembered that moment well, how they’d decided to leave the wedding about twenty minutes before it was set to end, how her heart had fluttered when Asami slipped her hand into Korra’s, how Korra had been so amazed to feel that sudden, growing burst of happiness in her heart that she had once felt with Mako. Watching her memory, she felt all those feelings all over again ... but also she also watched Mako looking at them leave, and felt his heartbreak.

“Something told me not to follow you,” Mako said. He’d turned into his disheveled self again. “When Bolin called me and told me about your trip I ...”

Mako shook his head. They were in what Korra assumed had to be his apartment. It looked like a wreck, newspapers and takeout boxes strewn everywhere.

Korra looked around, shocked. “You took it this hard? Really?”

“Like I said, I know it didn’t make rational sense, but ...” Mako sighed, shook his head as he sat on his couch. “You know, I never tried to date in the three years after we broke up. I think I always held out some crazy hope.” He saw something on his table, smiled slightly and picked it up. When Korra looked closer she saw it was a page of personals ads.

“Lin shoved this in my face one day on the condition that I never tell her about my dates. She said she’d spent a lot of time bitter over a future that never happened but that I was too young.” He flipped through the pages a bit, shook his head. “You never tried dating, right? Not ... not going on dates with Asami or me, but, like, meeting up with a stranger and seeing if you’ll like them?”

“No,” Korra said. She sat on the arm of the couch opposite him.

Mako chuckled and shook his head. “It’s so awful, Korra. It’s like this stupid dance.” He held up his hands, shook his fingers – the ones both in and out of his cast. “‘Hey, new person! Look at me. I’m fun. I’m interesting. I have so many stories I could tell you about but I can’t remember any of them right now because I’m worried about whether or not you’ll like me. It’s so much fun getting super invested in you and then crushed when you’re completely bored. So ... so much fun.”

Korra couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Was it always that bad?”

“No, not always. I met a few nice people. A few more weirdos. Once I took a girl home after a date and her father tried to beat me up.”

Korra’s eyes widened. “Wow, really? Did you fight him?”

“Nah,” Mako smirked. “I told him I was a cop – flashed him my badge and everything – and he ran away. Turns out he had a warrant out for his arrest. It was fun hauling him in.”

Korra laughed. Mako smiled back, but shrugged.

“I don’t make a good first impression, though. A few girls asked me for a second or third date, but never any more than that. A lot of nights I just didn’t feel up for it, either. People would call and I’d worry it’d be a new date so I just didn’t answer the phone. I missed a lot of calls from Bolin and a few chances at overtime that way.

“The two really special people I met outside of the personals.”

~*~*~

“My parents are both scientists and professors,” Yuki said as she and Asami walked through the tunnels. “They’re basically workaholics. It they didn’t meet at work they might have both been alone forever. Anyway, when they married my mother was 37 and my father 40. In a year my older sister Shinobu was born. She took after them in all the ways they’d hoped. She was smart, serious, practical. And then, eight years later, after they thought their days of having kids were over, I came along.”

The two of them walked into what Asami assumed was Yuki’s old living room. In Yuki’s memory, she was five years old, deftly climbing up the front of a bookcase while her 13-year-old sister worked at a nearby desk, unconcerned.

When Yuki reached the top, she spread out her arms. “Airbenders away!” she yelled, and then launched herself from the top of the bookcase onto the couch. When she landed unharmed, she did this again and again. “Airbenders away! Airbenders away! Airbenders away!”

Shinobu screamed in frustration. “If you’re going to try to kill yourself, can you do it already and quit annoying me? If I don’t finish my homework I’ll never get done with my extra credit.”

“I’m just having fun,” Yuki said with a pout.

“Mom!”

Next Yuki and Asami were looking at a memory of Yuki scrawling on the walls of her room with paints and being scolded by her father. Then another of her walking through the living room on her hands and being scolded by her mother. Then another of her running through her backyard yelling and screaming.

“Yuki!” her mom called out the window. “Stop that! You’re annoying your father and you’ll ruin your dress. Can’t you come in and sit quietly for a few hours?”

“That seems a little harsh,” Asami said.

“I don’t think they meant to be. The last time they had a kid they were ready for it. And she would sit quietly and hang on their every word and wasn’t ...” Yuki smiled and shrugged. “Well, a parrot-lizard.”

Asami laughed.

“Even when I tried to be more like them I don’t think I was enough like them ...”

In the next memory, Yuki was around 12 years old and was sitting at the kitchen table, talking while the rest of her family ate. “So there’s this monkey-man, right? And he’s stuck beneath a mountain for 500 years, but it’s just because he has to learn humility because he tried to pee on a pillar but it was actually this great spirit’s hand ... wait, I think I told this story backwards.”

Shinobu groaned. “Ugh, why do you care about that garbage, anyway? It’s a stupid story that doesn’t have any bearing on the real world.”

“It does so!” Yuki shrieked. “It teaches life lessons and helps you be a better person!”

“Sweetie,” Yuki’s mother said. “It’s all well and good to like legends and stories but when you grow up and try to get a job you’re going to have to see what you offer the world. There are a lot of people who read stories and play games, but they don’t make a lot of money.”

Yuki’s father nodded. “Yes, you need to keep your future in mind. Remember, we only want the best for you.”

“I heard that a lot,” Yuki told Asami. “Between that and the bullying I felt like there was something inherently wrong with me. I tried to change myself. By the time my family moved to Republic City I didn’t bother trying to talk to anyone. I kept to myself, didn’t try to make friends. I did fine in school – even if I couldn’t get the top grades my parents wanted – but all I really cared about was following pro-bending matches, and when the Fire Ferrets disbanded I followed stories about Avatar Korra. We were still in the city when Unalaq attacked ... I watched the fight out of my window, wished so hard that I could help her ...”

Asami felt her heart sink. She turned away and covered her mouth.

“Are you okay?” Yuki asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine ... finish your story.”

Yuki frowned for a moment. “Well, okay. A month after Harmonic Convergence – maybe a little while after you all left the city to find the airbenders in the Earth Kingdom, I discovered my own power.”

The memory showed a 16-year-old Yuki – she still had the long, brown hair but without the ponytails – sitting in a classroom. To Asami, she only seemed half-interested in the lesson, occasionally taking notes but also occasionally drawing swirls or little winged lemurs in her notebook. When the bell rang, Yuki leaped from her desk, a smile on her face.

The desk leaped with her. It flew up to the ceiling, knocked against it with a loud “bang!” before falling back to the floor.

“I didn’t know what happened at first,” Yuki said to Asami. “I expected everyone to point and laugh at me, or to yell at me, but ...”

“What happened?” asked a boy in the class.

“I think the new girl just airbent!” said another girl.

“Wow, really?” asked another boy. He ran to Yuki’s side. “What’s your name? Yuki, right? How long have you known?”

They all started crowding around Yuki. She looked at them in shock, clutching her books to her chest, neck whipping around rapidly to meet each new speaker.

“Do you know any tricks yet?”

“Can you show us?”

“Are you going to move away and join Master Tenzin?”

“Wow, Yuki. You’re, like, special, now,” said one girl.

“Special?” Yuki repeated, and Asami thought she saw Yuki’s eyes light up.

“When I became an airbender, I felt like my life had begun,” Yuki said to Asami as the memory faded. “I didn’t join Tenzin right away. I still had a year of school to go, but I tried to teach myself whatever I could about airbending in the meantime, both from books and, well, what I remembered of Korra’s fighting ...”

The two of them walked through a vision of Yuki doing just that. She was circle walking on the grounds of her school, throwing in what Asami recognized as a pro-bending move once in a while. Some of her classmates watched, applauded whenever she made a gust of wind.

“I learned the occasional parlor trick, too,” Yuki said as her memory-self picked up a bunch of marbles, spun them in a circle so they seemed like they were levitating between her hands.

“But I couldn’t wait for graduation, when I could go and fulfill my new calling. The day after the ceremony, I got a makeover – new look for a new life, right?”

Asami chuckled and nodded. “I do like those kinds of plans.”

“My parents weren’t impressed, though ...”

They were back in her kitchen again, Yuki sporting the haircut and dye job she had now. Her parents looked horrified, although her sister just looked bored.

“Young lady, you can’t be serious,” her father said, a deep frown on his face. “You were supposed to be heading to Ba Sing Se University in the fall.”

“But I’m an airbender now! I should be with the other airbenders.”

“Honey,” her father shook her head. “What are you going to do as an airbender?”

“Lots of things!” Yuki said, spreading out her arms. “I can fight bad guys and live in temples and meditate and, um ... fight bad guys.”

“Sweetie, that’s not the life you want,” her mother said. “You could barely defend yourself in school. Why do you think you want to fight people?”

“But I didn’t fight anybody because I’d get in trouble and everyone said to ignore them even though they were wrong!” Yuki yelled.

“There’s no need to yell, Yuki,” her father said. “Come now. A life of meditating and fasting? You’re not serious enough for that.”

Yuki crossed her arms and pouted. “So I’m serious enough to be a scholar and a scientist even though you think my grades stink?”

“You just need discipline ...”

“No, I don’t!” Yuki yelled, wind blowing around her as she did. “I’m a grownup now! I can do what I want!”

“Grownups don’t have outbursts like that, sweetie,” her mother said, her voice firm and poisonous.

“They do if nobody listens to them!” Yuki yelled. Her hands balled into fists and she stamped her foot. “They do if their family lets other kids pick on them for years and tells them it’s their fault! They do if they finally see a chance at being happy and their parents want to keep them away from it!”

Yuki’s father sighed and her mother shook her head. “Always so dramatic, Yuki,” her mother said. “If you would just sit and think ...”

“Oh, let her go,” Shinobu said, rolling her eyes. “She’s 17. She’s never been reasonable. She’s not going to suddenly start now.”

Asami watched Yuki turn away in her memory, walk out the door and slam it behind her. In truth, if Asami were Yuki she would have done the same thing. Yet she couldn’t help but be reminded of all those years she’d spent throwing her father’s letters away, the hole her mother’s death left in her heart. She wiped her tears away, trying not to make a sound, but soon she was sobbing.

“What’s wrong?” Yuki asked.

Asami felt Yuki’s hand on her shoulder, and this time she didn’t push it away. Part of her didn’t want to talk about her feelings with this young woman who she still didn’t know if she liked, even though Asami felt like she understood Yuki better now. And yet if Asami didn’t tell her, she didn’t know who else she could talk to.

“I’m scared,” Asami said. “I’m scared Korra wants to leave me.”

~*~*~

“Shen actually saw me reading in the library and spoke to me first. I didn’t realize he was flirting with me at first. Actually ... I ended up running after him into the streets when I did.”

Korra laughed and Mako’s face turned a bit red as he shrugged. She saw a bit of Mako’s next memory, of walking along with Shen down a vacant street. He was a handsome guy, slightly taller and buffer than Mako, with black hair and dark skin. Mako looked around a moment before reaching out for Shen’s hand. Shen smiled and yanked Mako into an alleyway, pressed him against the wall and kissed him.

“Hey, knock that off,” Mako said. He tried to cover Korra’s eyes, but she kept pushing his hand away.

“Just looking,” Korra said, her eyes locked on the vision and her voice spacey.

Mako groaned and shook his head. As the two of them continued walking, the memory faded away. “I really did like him, though,” he said. “He was friendly, easy to talk to, liked going to movers and collected lizards. He made me laugh sometimes. But I guess he didn’t think the same of me ...”

“Did he say why?”

Mako sighed deeply. An illusion appeared of him and Shen walking along the shoreline on the south side of the city at night.

“What do you mean you don’t want to see me again?” Mako asked Shen in his memory.

“Mako ...” Shen shook his head. “It’s just not going to work between us. You have to understand that.”

“No!” Mako shouted. “I don’t understand. We don’t fight. We don’t bicker. We barely even disagree on anything. I did everything right this time, I ...”

“But do you love me?” Shen asked him, he placed a hand on Mako’s cheek.

“Yes!” Mako said. His hazel eyes were full of desperation but after a moment Mako’s shoulders slumped and he turned away. “Well, I could ...”

“I can’t.” He kissed Mako on the cheek. “You’ll find what you’re looking for,” he said as he walked down the surf, away from Mako.

“To be honest, though,” Mako said to Korra. “I don’t think I knew what I was looking for. Maybe that’s why he didn’t stay. The breakup hit me hard, though. When I went to an unofficial pro-bending game two weeks later, I was still trying to get my mind off it ...”

Korra saw a vision of Mako watching the game. It reminded Korra a lot of when the two of them watched Yuki that first time, only this time around she felt exactly what Mako was feeling at the time, his awe, his joy, his attraction. She didn’t know if it would ever not feel weird ...

“Watching that game, watching her ...” Mako sighed and shook his head. “I felt young again, hopeful for the first time I could remember. The feeling I had when I first played pro-bending, when I first grew to know you, when we were dating ... I felt like it had come back at last.”

“Well ...” Korra folded her hands together, tapped her thumbs against each other. “That’s great, I guess. But to just see someone and fall in love at first sight ...”

“Love at first sight?” Mako stared at Korra for a moment, shocked. “I didn’t fall at love with Yuki at first sight. I asked her out after the game, she screamed at me like a fangirl and I wondered if I’d made the right decision, and we had an awkward date at Narook’s where she probably annoyed me as much as she annoyed you. But then, a few days later, she gave me a call.”

They were back in Mako’s apartment again. It was night and he was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, looking bored and depressed, when the phone rang. After three rings Mako reached out for the phone, hesitated, then finally picked up the earpiece.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Makoooooh!” said the voice on the other end of the receiver.

Mako’s face fell. “Oh. Hi, Yuki. How are you?”

“Oh my Spirits, I’m amazing! I just finished that book you mentioned, ‘The Romance of the Three Islands’? Eeee, I loved it so much. Do you want to talk about it? Because I can totally talk about it for hours.”

“Wait ...” Mako pushed himself up on the couch. “You read that all already? It’s like a thousand pages.”

Yuki laughed on the other end. “Oh, yeah. I love reading. I read, like, a book every few days.”

“Really? Wow, I ... that’s kind of a surprise.”

“Yeah, well, like ... not serious stuff like science texts and astronomy guides but I love legends and romances. Oooh! Have you read any of Princess Yualria’s poetry?”

“I haven’t.” Mako’s confused expression turned into a smile. He leaned back on the couch, spread out and comfortable. “Want to tell me about her?”

“We ended up talking until five in the morning,” Mako told Korra as the vision faded. “I’ve ... I’ve kind of been falling for her ever since.”

Another vision replaced that. Korra saw Mako and Yuki running through the main city park (it was still weird for Korra to think of it as being named after her). Yuki had a few yards on Mako, yelled back to him, “Catch me!” When Mako did, though, Yuki laughed and spirited ahead with airbending. Mako smiled, used a bit of firebending to propel him forward and catch up with her. Mako wrapped his arms around her and they fell to the ground, rolling together in the grass before they hit a tree, at which point they both laughed, kissed. In a sense, it seemed cheesy, almost alienating, and yet when Korra saw Mako’s face ...

Things really had changed.

“She’s my second love,” Mako whispered.

Korra stared at him, horrified. Mako shook his head.

“No, no. I don’t mean like that. I just ... I just mean I was truly in love once, and this is the second time I’ve felt that way. Yeah, Yuki’s intense. She’s loud. Sometimes she barrels into things without thinking. She can be too much for people, but ...” He smiled at Korra and shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe I have a thing for that.”

So he did mean it all, Korra thought. That was a good thing, she thought. Not a particularly pleasant thing, but maybe a good thing.

“So ...” Mako said. “What’s up with you and Asami?”

~*~*~

“Why do you think she’d want to leave you?” Yuki asked.

Asami sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Don’t you remember? Those looks Korra gave Mako.”

“Oh ...” Yuki said. She tapped her index finger against her chin a few times, then shrugged. “But Mako wouldn’t leave me.”

“Really?” Asami asked skeptically. “You do know he kissed Korra while he was dating me, right?”

“Well, yeah, but ...” Yuki giggled, covering her mouth with her fingers. “Who wouldn’t want to kiss the two of you?”

Asami raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “You can be so unsettling ...”

“I’m just kidding. Well, a little ... But didn’t both of you kiss him when you shouldn’t have?”

“I guess ...” Asami sighed deeply as she sat on the ground. She watched as Yuki sat next to her. “I kind of wish Bolin was right about me being perfect. I’m not perfect at all. I made a huge mistake with Mako. I’ve hurt Korra’s feelings now and in the past. I get impatient with people I don’t like and say things I shouldn’t. I held a grudge against my father for what he did, and then I lost him as soon as I tried to have a relationship with him again. When someone hurts me I have a tendency to push them away ... when really I always just want to hold onto them so I won’t be alone, but I don’t know how.”

“I don’t understand,” Yuki said. She seemed like she wanted to say more, but Asami’s memory formed in front of them, a memory they could both now see.

They were on the docks saying goodbye to Korra – her, Mako, Bolin, Tenzin and Jinora. As Asami watched her memory, she concentrated on Korra’s face. Was there something there that she hadn’t seen before? Something that told her that she wouldn’t be seeing Korra for years?

“Oh ... I think I know what this is,” Yuki said. She rubbed Asami’s shoulder, a sad pout on her face. “I cried when I read the articles about this.”

“Well, it was no picnic actually living through this, either.” Asami’s voice was bitter, but her anger soon gave way to the sadness she always felt thinking about this time. “I offered to come with her, you know? I had it all planned. Like I’d set up telegraphs so I could be with her and still work. She said no, said she’d be back quickly but she only wrote me one letter in three years. I guess I should feel good she only wrote to me ...”

Yuki shrugged. “Well, from what Mako told me she was really sick and spent most of that time healing, right?”

“I know, but ...” Asami closed her eyes. When she opened them again she saw her and Korra talking in the restaurant, saw herself yelling at Korra. “I said something really horrible to Korra after she came back. She didn’t agree with my attempts to reconnect with my father, so I yelled at her for being away for so long. And I shouldn’t have done it. Korra actually tried to apologize to me once, and she shouldn’t have had to do that. I shouldn’t have made her feel that she had to, but ...”

It was getting hard to speak. Asami sniffled, tried to choke back a sob. “I ... I always liked Korra, but I don’t think I realized how much I cared for her until she was gone. And I do care. I love her so much it hurts inside sometimes. So, how am I supposed to feel when the person I love, the person who I’d do anything for, was at her lowest point and didn’t want me there? I mean ...”

Asami couldn’t hold it back anymore. Her chest wracked with the pain of letting a fear she could never voice free. “I mean, what can I offer her? What can I do for her? I give her every luxury in the world and sometimes I feel like she wants them, but sometimes she chafes like she’s in a cage. I tried to give her my emotional support and she couldn’t use it. She’s the most powerful person on earth. And I ... I don’t know how I can ever hold onto that.”

With those last words she broke down into tears. As she cried, she was still vaguely aware of Yuki sitting quietly next to her. At first Yuki watched with interest, but then she frowned, scrunched up her face. Finally, Yuki shook her head.

“You’re being really silly, Asami,” Yuki said.

The insult shook Asami out of her misery. She wiped her eyes, glared at Yuki. “Excuse me?”

“Well, why should Korra need you? Maybe when she was really sick she didn’t need you but needed something else. Why is that bad?”

“Why is --?” Asami scoffed, shook her head. “Yuki, she’s the woman I love!”

“Oh, I know,” Yuki said calmly, her head bobbing up and down in a nod. “And she probably loves you back, but that’s not the same as needing you. She could have needed you when she was sick and then walked away. Loving you is different than needing you.”

“I ...” Asami sighed deeply, hugged her knees to her chest. “I guess not. But I would have thought that if we were meant to be I could have helped her at her lowest point.”

Yuki shrugged. “Well, like, what does ‘meant to be’ mean anyway?”

~*~*~

“I just don’t know what to tell you,” Korra said. She stared at her boots as she and Mako walked together. “There’s no big, grand story or dramatic sacrifice. I just ...”

Korra had to stop for a moment. The emotions, the words, were thick in her chest, seemed ready to choke her. Mako stood by her, waited patiently for her to speak again.

“I just felt so closed off these last three years, so frustrated and burdened by everything: my illness, Kuvira’s war, my responsibilities as the Avatar that I couldn’t fulfill. When it was all over, it was like this massive block over my heart was gone. And then when I did open my heart ...” Korra smiled slowly, “... Asami was there.”

Mako didn’t say anything in response. When Korra searched his face she wondered if he wanted to speak, but when he noticed her he just smiled painfully.

Korra sighed. “I really do love her, Mako. She’s smart and kind, this whole episode aside. She meets challenges head on, never hesitates to make a tough decision. She listens to me. She’s always supportive when she does. She ... she always tries to do her best for people. I just ...”

Korra stared at Mako. She wasn’t sure if the things she said upset him or he was just letting her talk. Maybe it was a little bit of both.

“I was so happy in the Spirit World,” Korra finally said, the words simultaneously feeling like a deep relief and a deeper betrayal. “I liked how peaceful it was when I was here with her. I liked showing it to her and teaching her what I’d learned. Now that we’ve come back ... I don’t know. I love Republic City, for all its problems. But sometimes I go to these meetings about stuff going on hundreds of miles away and come home to all this luxury and I feel guilty, like this isn’t where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing as the Avatar.

“I’ve always had people taking care of me, but I was still a child back then. Now I’m an adult and I don’t like feeling so dependent. So ... ugh. I hate to say it, but it reminds me of being trapped. Reminds me of being isolated in the compound or ... or in my own body.”

Korra felt like she’d gone too far. She pressed her palm to her forehead, hoped so hard that the mountains wouldn’t take her back to that time even though she felt a weakness growing in her limbs.

Then Korra felt a hand on her shoulder – Mako’s hand. She immediately felt calmer.

Korra sighed in sad relief. “It feels so ungrateful to even talk about this.”

“Look,” Mako said. His voice sounded oddly distant, yet there was still an attempt at gentleness. “I had a really, really hard time growing up. I won’t lie and say there weren’t times where I resented the people who had more than I did. But, honestly, I know both you and Asami do a lot for other people, and I think it’s okay to enjoy what you do have.

“And ... and, you know, if you need to do things as the Avatar or take time for yourself, even if that means being away from Asami, I think she’d respect that. You just need to find a balance between the both of you, and I think you’re both understanding enough to do that.”

Korra strained to smile. Part of her wanted to hug him. Then she realized Mako was moving in to wrap his arms around her. She squeezed him back, hard and tight.

“We made the right choice, didn’t we?” Korra asked.

“I think ...” Mako said. Korra felt his sigh. “I think we made the decision we had to at the time. And I think that’s what matters.”

Korra closed her eyes, squeezed him tighter.

~*~*~

“You see, there’s this idea people have that there’s only one person for us in the whole world, and that in every new life it’s our job to find this person again. So if we ever, like, dated or fell in love or even married someone and it didn’t work out, we were wasting all the time we should have spent with the our real, true love. But I don’t think it works that way.”

Yuki had her arms wrapped around her knees, rocked back and forth where she sat on the ground with a smile on her face. “Like, four years ago I was this super-sad person who didn’t have any goals or anything. And Mako was just this really popular but really closed-off pro-bender who didn’t have any friends. But then he met you and Korra, and that meant he helped Korra save the world during Harmonic Convergence. And that meant I got my bending, and if I weren’t a bender he wouldn’t have met me. It’s the same with you, right? If Korra didn’t get to know Mako, you would never have met her, right?”

Asami had to smile. “I guess not.”

“Totally! Like, destiny’s not some goal. It’s just, like, these moments that lead to other moments, and those moments lead you to your present and future and ... and who you are.” Yuki chuckled and shrugged. “You know what I mean?”

“I think I do.” Asami tilted her head as she looked over Yuki. “Did you learn that from a guru?”

“What?” Yuki exclaimed, shocked. Then she giggled and shook her head. “Oh my Spirits, no! It’s just something I made up.”

“Heh,” Asami said. Maybe Yuki really did deserve to be an airbender. Asami kept thinking. “You know, you really are smart.”

Yuki’s eyes lit up and she smiled wide. “Really? You think so?”

“I do. And,” Asami rested her chin on her hand as she stared at Yuki, “I also think it’s really interesting that you and Mako fell in love. He’s gotten better about it, but he’s a guy who uses his anger as a shield. Meanwhile, you use happiness.”

With those words, the light in Yuki’s eyes went out. She shifted away from Asami, uncomfortably. “What are you talking about?”

“Yuki, I’m sorry for how I acted toward you earlier. I was really angry about what you did, but I really let it get the better of me and I did and said some things I’m not proud of. I also know I’m giving you some unsolicited advice, but I want to remind you that you did the same to me.”

Yuki tapped her fingers against her knees. “Okay ...”

“Look,” Asami reached out, grabbed Yuki’s hand. “I realize now that you’ve spent a lot of your life being unhappy because of the way people treated you. And I know that, because your life’s better, you want to hold onto that. And that’s fine. You have a real zest for life and you shouldn’t lose that if you can. But ... the way you act, you basically run over other people, especially when it comes to their boundaries and their comfort level.”

Yuki didn’t say anything. When tears started forming in her eyes, Asami reached into her pocket and handed her a tissue. Yuki nodded and took it, wiped her eyes as Asami patted her on the knee.

“I don’t know how to not be me, though.” Yuki said. She sniffled. “I tried so, so hard to not be, and people still hated me anyway. So, being me – obnoxious, annoying me – is all I have left ...”

“Oh, come on,” Asami rolled her eyes. “Mako loves you, doesn’t he? Korra thinks you’re a great fighter, doesn’t she? And I just said I think you’re smart. You have good qualities. You can be you. You just have to pay a little more attention to how people are reacting to you, think more about how your actions – like, yes, what you did at the tournament – affect other people. Because when you do that? People are going to start to see you for the intelligent, gregarious person you are.”

Asami shook Yuki’s knee with the last word. Yuki tried to smile at her. Asami got to her feet, held Yuki out a hand which she eagerly took.

“I really am sorry for everything,” Yuki said as she dabbed the last bit of tears from her eyes. “I messed up a lot.”

Asami shrugged. “Korra’s kind of right. What’s done is done. We’ll just start over, okay?” She held out her hand to Yuki. “Friends?”

Yuki’s eyes widened as she saw Asami’s hand outstretched to her. She let out an ear-piercing squeal, leaped onto Asami and kicked her heels as she hugged Asami.

“Urgh! Baby steps, I guess,” Asami grumbled as she hugged Yuki. Then she heard two sets of footsteps behind her. Figures, Asami thought grumpily.

~*~*~

“Man,” Korra whispered to Mako. “And I thought we’d be the ones getting in trouble for that.”

“I don’t know,” Mako whispered back. “I’m just glad it’s happening at all.”

Yuki caught sight of Mako and gasped happily. She spread out her arms and ran toward him. “Mako!”

Mako caught her as she leaped into his arms, spun her around. Korra’s reunion with Asami would be more sedate. She walked towards her girlfriend, an awkward smile on her face.

“Hey, there,” Korra said gently. “I guess we have a lot to say to each ...”

“Not now,” Asami said. She took Korra’s face in her hands and kissed her fiercely, tongue coaxing Korra’s to hers. Okay, perhaps not so sedate, Korra thought happily. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Asami, felt grateful and loved in that moment. They were still staring happily into each other’s eyes when the sound of static broke their reverie.

“Asami? Mako? Please come in? Anyone?”

Mako reached into his pocket and pulled out the radio. He switched it on. “Bro, I hear you! Where are you?”

“Outside the mountain with Opal. We’ve reached the top ... Oh no!”

The static died. Mako pressed the button again. “What’s ‘Oh no!’ mean? Bolin? Bolin, what’s ‘Oh no!’ mean?”

An ear-piercing “caw” split the air and their ears. The four of them had barely any time to react before the blue phoenix barreled through the tunnels, knocking a hole in the ground and the four of them through the hole.

Only this time as they fell, Korra was still conscious. She immediately looked for others, called the name of the first one she saw.

“Yuki! Funnel!”

Korra slipped into the Avatar State. She turned as she fell, blew a stream of air toward the ground. Yuki seemed to understand what she meant because she dove past Korra, arms and legs straight back behind her, then when they got low enough Yuki spread out her arms, started flying in circles around the stream and turning it into a funnel.

It was enough to cushion Mako and Asami’s landing. The four of them started running as soon as they hit the ground, the phoenix’s electric wings singing bits of their clothes and hair.

Korra’s heart was pounding, but somewhere in the melee an idea formed. “Asami, get those rockets you built ready. Yuki, get on an airball, I want you to distract the phoenix while we work. Don’t try to engage it. Do you promise me? I need you.”

Yuki seemed to be shaking but even still she nodded, gave Korra a salute. Korra watched as she got on an airball and zoomed toward the phoenix, up the walls of the tunnel near the electric bird.

“What do you need from me?” Mako asked Korra.

It was hard not to be a little upset when she asked the question: “How much pain does it cause to re-direct lightning, really?”

Mako sighed and shook his head. “I’ll do whatever you need me to.”

So a lot, then. Korra nodded. “Try to bend the lightning that makes up the beast as best as you can while Asami attacks it with the rockets. I’ll be using as much spirit bending power as I can.”

“I’ll do my best,” Mako said with a nod. “Always ride with you into battle, right?”

Korra smiled.

“Korra!” Asami called. She was sitting a few feet away, several small rockets set up around her. “Fire now?”

Korra looked up at the phoenix. Yuki was spinning around its head, bobbing and weaving as she dodged the phoenix’s swipes.

“Now!”

Asami set off the first rocket straight into the beast’s stomach. It whizzed straight through it – to be honest Korra expected it to – but Korra’s plan was to annoy the beast from both angles and it seemed to be working. The phoenix screeched at Asami, started to dive at her before Asami sent another rocket straight through the beast’s head.

“Mako, let’s go!”

His lightning flashed across her eyes as she entered the Avatar State. As she bent the spirit, she could feel Mako beside her, leeching away at the phoenix’s energy. The phoenix screamed as the double helix of light surrounded it, as it started to turn gold. Korra met more resistance. She almost faltered when another set of rockets hit it, as Mako bent more energy from it. Korra pushed herself harder, and soon the light had suffused the bird.

And yet it didn’t disappear. In fact, the golden light around the bird expanded, grew and burst in an explosion that sent the four of them reeling.

Korra screamed, could hear everyone else’s screams, as they were knocked against the inner walls of the mountains. As soon as she could right herself Korra started looking for the other three, found them lying not far from her.

“Is everyone okay?” Korra asked as her friends began to find her feet. Then she looked around, gasped loudly.

Yuki’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my ...”

“... Spirits,” Asami finished for her. “Yeah, ‘Oh my Spirits,’ indeed.”

They weren’t in what looked like a cave in the mountains anymore, but a Fire Nation Palace. Only instead of red and gold the décor was a brilliant blue and white – and not the deep blues and purples of the Water Tribe but a bright, electric blue. Along the pillars, several men and women were tied up – men and women Korra recognized as the presidential candidates. Their screams and entreaties for help were muffled beneath their gags.

And where the phoenix had been, there was an old woman. She had long, white hair and golden eyes that gave the impression of anger and delusion. When she got to her feet, her long nails reminded Korra of the bird’s talons.

“This is my palace,” the woman sneered. “My nation. All who trespass feel the wrath of the Phoenix Queen!”

The sight of the woman made Korra sick to her stomach. Given the legends she’d heard of the woman’s cruelty she expected to feel some sort of horror, but instead she felt a deep pity. She thought fast, then, after a moment, dropped to her knee, held her fist to chest. The other three seemed confused for a moment, but followed her example.

“Oh great Phoenix Queen,” Korra said, her head bowed. “We come as emissaries from the United Republic. By the orders of President Raiko we humbly request permission to extradite the trespassers of your sovereign nation to their home country for trial.”

“You fools!” the Phoenix Queen shouted, the lightning crackling from her fingertips. “It is you who are the trespassers. Fall to your stomachs! Kowtow to me! I demand your imprisonment for all eternity, or else you will die like the ones who brought these miscreants here.”

Korra raised her head. Her eyes shifted to Asami, then Mako. She muttered under her breath. “Anyone up for throwing diplomacy out the window and busting up this dream palace raise their hand.”

All three of them did.

“Let’s roll.”

~*~*~

Bolin and Opal were making a slow trek down the hole left by the phoenix’s burrowing into the mountains when they felt the rumble beneath their feet. It was quiet at first, but soon grew loud, was moving closer.

“Um ...” Bolin gulped. “Honey?”

Opal grabbed onto him, took to the air. She was straining when they reached the top, and after she passed the lip they felt themselves blown away by a massive thrust of power behind them. Opal and Bolin screamed as they hit the side of the mountains again, rolled down them.

When they looked up, the first thing they saw was the blue phoenix barreling into the sky. Then they saw their four team members scattered outward from the bird’s flightpath, each of them with at least one presidential candidate on their back (or in Asami’s case, on both sides of her rocket-powered glider) screaming for dear life. As the phoenix turned, the four of them dove down toward where Bolin and Opal stood staring up at them in awe.

“Run!” Korra yelled. Bolin felt Opal grab him again before she took to the air. When they got to the valley she dropped him, let him lava-bend his way back across.

The phoenix let out cry after cry of rage. Yet as they fled the cries only grew dimmer. Despite her anger, despite the insult, the queen had found her realm at last, and would still not leave it.

~*~*~

“So, what did you say your name was, again?”

“Mako.”

“Mako. A fine name for a young man.”

“Thanks.” Mako held out his cup, smiled as Iroh poured tea in it.

They hadn’t expected to come upon Iroh’s camp in the Spirit World, but they found it anyway – perhaps they needed it. The sun shone brilliantly in the now-cloudless blue sky, but the presidential candidates still looked varying degrees of shell-shocked.

“Go into politics,” a dark-skinned man murmured as an ostrich-emu poured him a cup of tea. He brought it to his lips with a shaky hand. “Make a lot of money, they said. Change the world, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”

Korra wondered how many of them were going to continue their campaigns after this. She turned her attention back to her friends. Iroh joined Mako, Bolin, Opal and Yuki at their table. They were chatting and laughing pleasantly together, and Korra had to smile, too. If they wanted to, they could make a really happy family, she thought.

Korra heard Iroh sigh. “I apologize for the trouble with my niece. Every so often I visit the mountains, ask her to leave, but she remains trapped by dreams of the past.”

Yuki nodded. Then she turned to the two-headed frogs sitting at the end of the table. “Do you spirits actually mean anything, or are you just, like, there?”

The two heads looked at each other, perplexed. Korra felt Asami’s hand on her shoulder. She leaned into it, let Asami wrap her arms around her and rest her head against the top of Korra’s.

“Let’s get out of here for a bit,” Asami said.

They walked away from the camp, to the top of a mountain. Then they took each other’s hands, like they once did a year ago.

“I’m really sorry for everything I said and did,” Asami said to Korra. “I acted really petty. I was just so afraid of losing you, of not being enough for you.”

“Well, I needed to get my head together and grow up about Mako, so I can understand why you’d be upset. I just ...” Korra squeezed Asami’s hands tighter. “I just want to go on focusing on you, and on us. And ... I know this sounds a little contradictory, but I think part of that future is going to be outside of Republic City.”

The worry in Asami’s eyes cut Korra. “What do you need?”

“I have a little bit of my own money ... I think I want to set up a place in the South Pole, live there for part of the year. It’d be good for Naga. And I think being more mobile would be good for me.”

Asami’s eyes brightened, turned into a smile. “Is that all? I could pay for it.”

Korra shook her head. “Don’t.”

“Well, at least let me install a hottub so I have a place to be warm when I’m working via telegraph.”

Korra laughed, took Asami into a hug. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“Aww,” Asami cooed, ruffled Korra’s short hair. “You’re so romantic.”

Korra snickered and gave a grin that showed all her teeth. “Yep, I’m going to hunt a big, giant furry polar bear-mammoth and skin it right in front of you.”

Asami shuddered. “Ew.”

“I’ll have its bloody meat in my teeth as I stitch you the fur coat,” Korra ducked and grabbed onto Asami’s waist, hoisted her up over her shoulder. She curled her free hand into a fist and pumped it into the air. “Hoist it over my shoulder like this! Bounty for the woman I love!”

“Korra!” Asami screamed, but she was already laughing as Korra started running across the valley.

~*~*~

A month later, Asami and Korra held their charity banquet. It wasn’t Korra’s ideal of a good time, but she loved the food (even if some snobs called it quaint and unfit for a gala) and seeing so many strangers come out to congratulate her and Asami made her happy. They had White Lotus guards posted at the entryways, but luckily for the both of them nothing happened.

Bolin and Opal arrived early. Tenzin’s family came an hour later. An hour after that, a man in a brown suit arrived carrying a large vase of flowers.

Korra opened an envelope pinned to the flowers, found a thirty-thousand yuan check and a note.

“To Korra and Asami,

“I figured I should sit this one out. I think me being there would be a bit too weird. Hope you have a great night and I wish you all the best. If anyone deserves happiness, it’s the two of you.

“ ~~From,~~ With love,

“Mako”

~*~*~

Their vacation plans changed. They were going to Kyoshi Island now, just Team Avatar.

Asami drove the car up to the curb in front of Mako’s apartment on the second floor of a three-story row house. He was waiting on the steps with his bags, Yuki at his side.

“Hey,” Korra said as she got out of the car, came to greet him.

“Hi,” Mako said with a smile. He patted Yuki on the shoulder as she waved her fingers at Korra. “Don’t mind her. I know I’m the only one invited. She lives with me, now.”

“That’s really nice,” Korra said. “Congratulations, Yuki.”

“Thanks.” Yuki’s face brightened and she waved her arm wildly as Asami got out of the car and came to greet them. “Hi, tunnel buddy!”

Asami laughed. “Hi, Yuki.”

Mako bumped Yuki with his shoulder. Her eyes widened and she snapped her fingers.

“Oh!” Yuki turned and picked up a box behind her. She walked down the front steps and handed Asami the box. “This is for you.”

Asami opened it. Korra looked over her shoulder, and her eyes widened. The box was full of pictures of her.

“Is this ...?” Asami’s mouth had dropped open as she flipped through the newspapers and folded-up posters. “Is this your whole collection?”

“Well,” Yuki giggled and shrugged. “I kept the Mako stuff for me. But you can have the Korra stuff. It’s ... I don’t know. You’re all people I know, now. It’s probably time to stop being a fan when that happens, right?”

Asami closed the box, stroked it reverently. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Korra shook her head, a smile on her face. Stranger things had happened, she supposed.

Mako picked up his bags. “Come here,” he said to Yuki, squeezed her tightly with his free hand. “I’m going to miss you, sweetie.”

“Me too,” she said. “Send me lots of postcards! One every day! If you don’t know what to say you can tell me the weather.”

Mako laughed as he loaded his bags into the trunk (trying to find the barest hint of space for his two among Asami’s ten), although Korra saw a wistfulness in his eyes as the three of them got into the car, began to drive away.

Asami’s progress was slow. Korra caught her looking in the rearview mirror. When Korra turned around, she saw Mako watching out the back, still waving to Yuki.

Korra sighed sadly, touched Asami on the arm.

Yuki was opening the door to the apartment when Asami backed up in front of it.

“Hey!” Korra called out. “Yuki!”

Yuki whirled around, shocked.

“Stop moping and get your skinny butt in here.”

Yuki’s mouth widened in a smile. She tapped her feet and let out a shriek, flew down the steps to hug Korra, then Mako.

Mako kissed her. “Told you they’d come around.”

Korra gasped and shoved him, but he just laughed and pumped his fists close to him.

Yuki reached behind the door and took out her bag. She let it rest beneath her feet as she got into the passenger’s seat behind Asami. Then Yuki reached over the back of the driver’s seat and hugged Asami. “Eee! Thank you so much!”

Asami snorted, reached back to get Yuki in a headlock and give her a noogie. Yuki just laughed, snuggled up to Mako when Asami set her free. Korra reached out and pet Asami on the knee. As Asami put the car’s gear back into drive, Korra spared another look toward Mako and Yuki.

Perhaps there was no way to truly go back to friendship after love. Glue the vase back together and you could still see the cracks. Mako and Yuki together still seemed strange to Korra, perhaps would always be strange. Yet as Asami drove them to Bolin and Opal’s home, to the airport where Asami would drive the plane to take them to Kyoshi Island, all Korra could think was about how happy she was, how happy they all were. The happiest couples – the happiest friends – in the world.

The End.


End file.
